Bee Club Picnic

   I belong to our local bee club, the Northwest District Beekeepers Association. This past July they held their annual picnic at Polestar Farms near Granite Falls, Washington.  It was a lovely event and was very well attended.  I had heard there were 115 RSVPs and I'm sure there were at least that many attendees.  The club provided hamburgers, hot dogs, and drinks while everyone was supposed to bring either a dessert or a salad.  They ended up with enough food to feed a small army. My hat is off to Helen Crozier who was the primary organizer of this year's picnic. I can remember club picnics in the not too distant past which had less than 20 attendees.

    They had a number of fun activities scheduled to include door prizes, a creamed honey demonstration, the use of beeswax in making cosmetics such as lip balms, a hive side chat, mead making, and candle making.  I assisted with the hive side chat.  Mark Salser, co-owner of Polestar farms used two of his beehives for the hive side chat. He very wisely moved them from their normal location a few days before the picnic to his front yard. This resulted in all of the older foragers being left behind at the old location to drift into the neighboring hives. As a consequence we did a hive demo with only younger house bees present in the hives.  The older a worker bee gets, the more inclined she is to behave defensively and to sting a perceived intruder.  On the other hand, younger worker bees are not very inclined to sting.

   Mark did the hive exam wearing a T-shirt and shorts.  The only safety precaution he took was to wear safety glasses to protect his eyes from a possible sting.  I, on the other hand,  had brought a new bee jacket for the occasion. I'm less inclined to trust other people's bees than I am my own bees so I decided to wear the jacket.  I imagine that I looked a bit timid compared to Mark.  As it turned out, the bees were total sweethearts and showed no inclination to act defensively.  Mark did most of the talking and it turned out to be a pretty easy gig.  We could have just as easily done the hive exam in our swimsuits. The main value in the hive side chat is for the newer beekeepers to be able to watch an experienced beekeeper like Mark demonstrate good technique and explain what they are supposed to be looking for when they open one of their beehives.

Mark demonstrates how to light a bee smoker

My obsession with propolis gets the best of me

   The other demonstrations that I watched were also well done.  I have to admit that I didn't stick around for the mead making demo. Being a good Mormon I didn't anticipate I would use that information very much. The lip balm and hand cream demo was definitely a big hit as everyone got to take home samples. Most importantly there was lots of good food and interesting company. I may have mentioned before that beekeepers tend toward the quirky side (myself included)