Douglas County Bees

General Meeting Minutes

December 7, 2022

Robert Baune – president and Beau Miakinkoff – secretary/treasurer were unable to attend this scheduled meeting.  Charley Moyer – vice president and the new Executive Board Elect were facilitating the meeting. I have yet to receive the minutes of this meeting to be recorded here with the rest of the Monthly General Meeting minutes for the remaining tenure for 2022 as per the DCB Constitution and Bylaws.

On this same day, Robert and Beau hand delivered a letter to the bank authorizing the new Executive Board Elec. to have the new officers signature cards on file.  The letter also indicated that the new Board Elect, as per the DCB Constitution and Bylaws were to take control on 1/1/23.  The new signatures were taken on 12/12/22 along with changing the mailing address of where the statements are being sent. (this rendered the current treasurer not receive the December bank statement that usually arrives mid-month following the end of the month) I now do not have access to know any further transactions that occurred with the DCB bank accounts past 12/12/22.

It is now 12/31/22. The eve of the new year.  My tenure and Robert’s will be completed at the stroke of midnight tonight. Your new Executive Board elect and a new chairperson will arrive on 1/1/23 at 1:00pm to collect all of DCB’s equipment and other belongings.  We (Robert and Beau) have not been informed of what the new mailing address, new phone number, or any other than an email of DCB2023Board@gmail.com .

I want to let everyone know that this douglascountybees.org website  is owned, hosted and maintained solely by Beau Miakinkoff.  I have jeapardised no DCB non-profit statuses.  DCB was the entity that declined obtaining a new website when they lost it back when Ivory Los Banos was still president. DCB had 2 oportunities (recorded in general meetings) to rebuild a website for themselves.  Ergo, the domain was purchased by Beau, built by Beau, hosted by Beau and maintained by Beau.  DCB never paid for any of it.  DCB is free to establish their own website presence if they so desire.

The DCB facebook page was discussed in several monthly meetings.  Phil Moulton was in charge of it.  He wished it to be converted to a group which is more easily managed.  NO ONE wanted to be responsible for this page.  Phil struggled with it.  He was not a fan of facebook.  After the last general meeting where no one volunteered to step up to take charge, Phil approached me (Beau) asked me to be the admin for the page.  I accepted and he immediately vacated the admin page gifting it to me to manage.  This facebook page has now been renamed to DCBeekeepers with facebook’s approval.  I have this month removed all DCB logos and all the DCB informational items.  The contact information on this site will remain as it appears as Beau is the owner/manager.  I have a pinned post at the top of it that invites those that follow that page to join the new group.  I have established a new facebook group entitled Douglas County Beekeepers.  This too is Beau’s.  Neither of these facebook sites have anything to do with Douglas County Bees.  DCB is free to establish their own facebook presence if they so desire.

The new Board Election that took place on the Monthly General meeting in October resulted in 2 members of the Board being nominated and elected that did not qualify.  One must be a member in good standing at the time of the election as per the DCB Contitution and Bylaws in order to be an Officer of the Board.  Beau read a list of the DCB Members that qualified as a member in good standing prior to the election process begininng.  DCB has a president, Adrian Aramburu, who is not a member in good standing.  DCB has a secretary, Kimberly Kinney, who is not a member in good standing. Since the election in October, the new Board Elect has sent multiple emails to Robert and I that accuse us of wrong-doing. A constant barrage of harassment and slander with heresay.  I have answers for every accusation that has been put forth to us but never sent the response email back to them.  I have attempted my level best to keep this type of communication away from the general membership as it is not good business to allow such a thing to happen within and organization. (flash back to what Jack Riley did back in 2019!) But, if any member of DCB wishes to know the truth and all the B.S. that has been sent our way via the new Board Elect and chairpersons…. please contact me.  I have all the records.

Back in 2019, DCB was failing.  This organization was in decline.  The covid mandates made it nearly impossible to keep DCB afloat.  NO ONE stepped up to take positions on the New Board that October.  Phil Moulton (original founder of DCB) wished to remain vice president.  Beau Miakinkoff stepped up to volunteer as secretary/treasurer, and Robert Baune agreed to fill the position of president with a disclaimer stating he was unsure about fulfilling this duty.  Phil and Beau responded with he would have assistance in performing this duty.  DCB needed to have at least 3 people on the Executive Board as per the non-profit regulations.  THAT is how we were able to save DCB from not perishing.

Robert and Beau have worked for two and a quarter years to keep DCB afloat and thriving.  It has been hard work.  We have many good memories of working with so many people from the public as well as the two and a quarter years of members.  It has been our pleasure.  We sincerely thank everyone that has helped us to make DCB remain a public service organization for all of Douglas County as well as to improve the survival rate of the colonies of honey bees that we have rescued and relocated.

Beau has the 2022 financial P&L compiled up through 12/12/22.  Since I am not privy to any transactions in the bank accounts past that date, I can not publish the final draft for DCB members to see.  I can proudly tell you that during our tenure we have managed to increase DCB’s cash assets by $1,541.84 since we took charge of the management of DCB in 2019. It has been quite the experience!

Robert and Beau will continue to rescue and relocate honey bee colonies and we plan on having a swarm call hotline for the public to use to tell where the unwanted bees have landed and we plan on having a swarm alert service provided to Douglas County Beekeepers members.  If you wish to be a part of a group of beekeepers that have no stomach for political posturing, power grabbing, or slandering each other please feel free to contact us.  douglascountybeekeepers@gmail.com is functional.  Douglascountybeekeepers facebook group is functional and has our contact info there.  Send the “admin” a message! We intend to still provide all of Douglas County the free community service honey bee removals and relocation with the intent of increasing their survival.

Thank you so very much.  We with everyone a very happy new year (2023) and much success in your beekeeping ventures.

Beau Miakinkoff ~ secretary/treasurer and Robert Baune ~ president

Douglas County Bees

General Meeting Minutes

November 2, 2022

Abby’s Annex

6:00pm called to order

20 people in attendance with 2 being visitors

The Dinner Raffke wuinner was Marty Brint

A visitor, David Stults, stopped by with an announcement that he has been a beekeeper but can no longer do this because he has developed allergies. He wishes to sell what remaining beekeeping equipment he has for $250.00 He will also be advertising on Craig’s List. David can be reached at 541-643-5985. Here is the list of what is available: 13 ea 9 frame supers,6 shallows with frames, 2 nucs, unboxed frames, queen excluders, 2 bottom boards, top boards, 2 hive tops, 2 feeders, and misc. plastic foundation.

OSBA/Oregon Master Beekeeper Program has contacted DCB requesting volunteers to be mentors to their Master Beekeeper Program students. They have claimed to have no mentors in Douglas County. If you are interested please contact Jan Loman 541-980-0304

Treasurer’s report of $4,574.11 in the checking account and the savings account has a balance of $1,859.37 in non-designated funds and $86.02 in Bee School Funds.

Ian Fuller attended the OSBA 2022 Fall Conference in Florence, Oregon on the DCB Scholarship that was awarded to him last month. Ian was called to the floor to give us a review of what he learned. Ian presented an awesome review of everything he attended at the conference. Everyone in attendence at this general meeting was very appreciative of all the information he collected at the conference and shared with us. THANK YOU <3 , Ian. I think the last time DCB enjoyed an actual report from one of our members attending the OSBA Annual Conference was 2019.

Questions and comments were made on various topics of Ian’s report.

The official DCB General Meeting was adjourned at 7:00pm

Beau Miakinkoff ~ secretary/treasurer

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General Meeting

October 5^th, 2022

Abby’s Annex in Roseburg

27 in attendance with 3 being visitors

Called to order at 6:00pm by Robert Baune

Robert welcomed the visitors and asked all in attendance if they preferred to take care of the business reports first or the election first. It was decided to take care of the business first

Beau gave the treasurer report: There is $4,497.98 in the checking account. Expenses paid out were $74.80 and monies taken in were $91.69 . The Savings account remains unchanged with a balance of $2,009.37 representing $150.00 designated for Bee School and $1,859.37 as Non-designated.

Beau gave the secretary updates on costs for replenishing the supplies needed for the “take away” items at the DCB booth for events. No purchases were decided as there needs to be discussions on how many shows DCB will attend in 2023 first as allocations of the “take away” items is by the number of days that DCB is at events and not by the event overall.

There are a few of the booklets/pamphlets on honey that are no longer available. And supplies are low on the card stock of “Bees of Oregon” that is very popular. A brief discussion about the Oregon Residential Guidelines book took place regarding the book or the flier that lets people know the link to go down load and print out the 18 pages of information for themselves. And the wildflower seeds and repackaging costs were discussed.

The calendar to reserve the meeting space at Abby’s Annex for the General Monthly meetings and for the up-coming Bee School sessions was turned submitted to Abby’s for the 2023 year. Our meeting reservations should have no problems.

Ian Fuller was awarded the OSBA Scholarship for the 2022 Annual Fall Conference.

Ann Fuller won the dinner raffle.

Election results are as follows and all positions will take over on January 1, 2023

President : Adrian Aramburu

Vice President: Charley Moyer

Secretary: Kimberly Kinney

Treasurer: Cynthia Moyer

Education Chair: Kimberly Kinney

Events Chair: Ivory Los Banos

Community/Club Liaison Chair: Tony Beerbohm

Swarm Alert Chair: Ian Fuller

Cut-out/Removal Chair: Ian Fuller

IT Chair: Cynthia Moyer

It has been Robert Baune’s and Beau Miakinkoff’s pleasure and honor to have served this organization for three years.

Beau distributed “Lovely Parting Gifts” to many members in attendance as a token of deep gratitude and appreciation of those that have helped us so much to keep Doulgas County Bees a vble organization serving all of Douglas County.

Meeting adjourned a little before 7:00pm

Beau Miakinkoff ~ secretary/treasurer

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General Meeting

September 7, 2022

Abby’s Annex – Roseburg

Commenced: 6:00pm

Adjurned: 7:00pm

22 in attendence (5 visitors, 4 became new members)

Rober Baune opened the meeting with a report of how many cut-outs are on the waiting list for the 2023 bee season. (approx. 10) Robert will be starting the phone calls to the members that received cut-out colonies for the 2022 bee season tostart compiling our fall survival/over-wintered analysis of the recsued colonies for DCB at the beginning of October.

Beau’s treasurer report stated that there is $4,437.29 in the checking account that represents funds deposited of $486.31 and expenditures of $118.59 . Revenue donations from events, dues, gift certificate purchase, & community rewards. Expen ditures are rent (dinner raffle) and office supplies (ink, paper, plexiglass frames). The savings account remains unchanged with a total of $2,009.37 with $150.00 designated to Bee School and $1,859.37 non-designated.

The Secretary report stated that there is 1149 ppl following the DCB FB page. Inside the last 28 days there was a huge spike in activity which resulted n 5219 people reached. Beau did explain what caused this viral activity. DCB currently has 70 members.

DCB held a meeting discuss the organizations financial situation and made the decision to increase the annual membership dues to $24.00 per annum. (this is only $2.00/mo) and the prorating for new membership will remain unchanged.

The Cut-out Chairperson’s mileage reimbursement was agreed to be changed to the Federal Charitable rate from the Federal Business rate which is a huge savings to DCB.

The need to improve the event participation/organization/donation collection/sales was discussed and decided that DCB should expand the Event chair and Event chair assistant to include a few more members to make it the Event team. We need the Event participation of this organization to be more fine-tuned, have all members staffing the event booth trained, and the set-up/take down to be as smooth as humanly possible. We need it to be like the well-oiled, machine that the Cut-out teams has become. So – the call for Volunteers to step forward to help make a difference in this area of DCB has officially been made.

A chart was compiled for Charley to analyse the benefits of the past events to determine if some should not be attended and try to get back into past events that we used to attend and to find other new events we might could attend in the next year. This chart included the event, event dates, expenses incurred, and donations/sales received. This was also a tool that prompted needing an Event Team!

The Executive board reviewed/discussed forming a grant writing committee. Beau has been working on the preliminary structure and basic information needed to submit applications to grants. It is at the point where DCB needs assistance to “customize” our applicatons to fit the parameters of each grant we apply for. DCB falls into several categories: Community Service, Non-profit, Education, Live Stock, Farming, Conservation, and Small Business. We hope to qualify for everything available in all of these categories and possibly a few others. Obtaining grants for DCB will relieve the pressure of soley relying on the public for funds to continue to operate. Recieving grants will allow DCB to expand into a much needed “next level” of fulfilling our “purpose” as stated in Article II of our Constitution and Bylaws. So – another call for Volunteers to step forward to help on the Grant Committee has officially been made, with Ann Fuller immediately raising her hand! We will need about 5 more people please. This is an intense task that involves timing and professionally written plans/descriptions/proposals. This committee needs to start meeting ASAP as submitting grant requests are time sensitive and it takes time for them to be reviewed and awarded. Contact Beau if you are interested in coming aboard on this venture!

The announcement of ORSBA annual conference that is coming up in October was made. This prompted inquiries about what are the presentation topics? Are they going to be more for the average beekeeper or is it going to be high-tech scientifical? Beau did look into this and here is the website address to go look at what you might like to learn at this conference.  https://orsba.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/september-2022-bee-line-reduced.pdf Page 9 has the tenative list of the presentations being offered. Just as a reminder: DCB is given ONE free pass to attend this conference. We have in the past awarded it to a member of DCB that desires to attend with the stipulation that the awadee returns to DCB for a report of what they learned at the conference.

With most of DCB business being taken care of, the floor was opened up for discussions. Feedback on all topics was greatly appreciated. Thank you Members and Visitors. We know there is room for improvement and are striving to remedy the issues.

Meeting adjourned at 7:00pm

Beau Miakinkoff ~ secretary/treasurer

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General Meeting

August 3^rd, 2022

Abby’s Annex

6:00pm

26 recorded in attendance 2 were visitors

Robert called the meeting to order with a report of Swarm Calls and Cut-outs for the 2022 bee season.

There were 35 swarms calls and 29 cut-outs. And there are already 6 cut-outs scheduled for the Spring of 2023. There was a brief discussion on a couple of the cut-outs schedules for next Spring.

A short treasurer report disclosed that there $4,069.37 in the checking account. This represents taking in $707.42 $322.00 from cut-out donations,$100.00 from membership dues, $143.42 from the Lavender Festival, $86.00 from the sale of 2 of the Old Sol Apiaries gift certificates, and $56.00 from Fred Meyers community rewards. There was $287.87 expended out that represents the purchase of a 10×10 canapy with support weights to be used at outdoor events/festivals. The dinner raffle drawing for July, the Melon Festival booth space fees, and some misc. items purchased at Staples that are needed as document holders/frames to replace those that were broken in our DCB show booth inventory. There remains an unchanged amount of $2,009.37 in the savings account.

We moved on to take care of the Douglas County Fair business next. The passes into the fair for the members that volunteered to staff the Observation Hive drop off/pick up schedule on a daily basis were handed out for their ease of entry and quick expediting the bees into our exhibit space and also for the as little hassle as possible for picking up the bees each night. All other volnteers and “daily pass” personnel must first park your vehicles and then walk to the Fair Office to check in to receive your pass to continue to where we have our booth space. A finalized instruction email will be sent to all the DCB Fair Volunteers on the schedule on Tuesday Night. It is recommended that you print this out and keep it with you. I will have all the HOW TO’s about staffing and working the DCB Fair at our booth. We have items for SALE, items for RAFFLE, a children’s activity table and an impressive display of various bee hives this year along with the usual informational hand outs, the honey stix and the wildflower seed packets.

There are still volunteer times available for the Melon Festival in Winston in September. The schedule was passed around for those in attendance to fill in where they could donate their time to help. By the end of the meeting the Blackberry Festival in Sutherlin was fully staffed —Thank you!

Q&A round robin….sort of…(as it really wasn’t roung…it was hap-hazard, but it all got taken care of!

Bee School is scheduled to start back up in October –the 2^nd Sunday at 2pm at Abby’s Annex.

Happy Birthday was sung to Charley Moyer (29 again)!

Meeting adjourned close to 7pm

Beau Miakinkoff ~secretary/treasurer

Douglas County Bees

General Monthly Meeting

July 6^th, 2022

Abby’s Annex

31 in attendance including 3 visitors

The Meeting was called to order by Robert Baune at 6pm with a report of completed swarm calls and cut-outs for this year’s bee season and the likelyhood of ending the cut-outs as the temperatures are getting too hot and the time constraint of allowing the bees to get re-established before winter well enough to successfully over winter.

The treasurer reported $3,664.87 in the checking account. Income for the month of June was $693.12 that represents $612.00 in cut-out customer donations, $1.00 donation from the Blooms and Butterfly event in Elkton, $20.12 from Amazonsmiles community rewards, and $60.00 in membership dues.

Expenditues were $10.48 rent (the dinner raffle) and $50.00 for renewing DCB with the Oregon Business Registry. The Oregon Business Registry increased their fees by ten dollars. It used to be only $40.00 annually. I don’t understand this fee increased….they certainly don’t have an increased time/work load in processing the renewals!

It was also reported that to date for 2022, DCB has taken in $1,134.00 in cut-out donations and $148.44 in donations from events.

Secretary reported 60 members with 44 being on the Swarm Call Alert and 30 members have received colonies of bee this year via cut-outs and/or the swarm call alert. A reminder to all in attendance that the DCB Constitution and Bylaws stipulates one must be a member in good standing to be on the swarm call list…this requires participation in DCB sanctioned events (staffing the DCB booth at festivals/events) and it sure would be nice if our volunteer schedule for these upcoming festivals could be filled as enthusiastically as everyone is when they receive colonies of bees. All the schedules for the remaining festivals for 2022 was passed around for members to fill in the schedules. The Lavender Festival was completed and the DC Fair was nearly completed. The Blackberry Festival also was nearly completed. The Melon Festival still needs volunteers. (future emails seeking volunteers will be issued)

The A/C and cooling sysems for Abby’s was not working. We had the doors open and a fan running, but the room still got kinda hot and stuffy.

Cynthia Moyer participated in an interview with Living Downstream radio and podcast. Keep an ear out on KQUA, and visit americorps.podbeam.com . Cynthia confesses, she was a bit nervous and some of the questions were kinda technical. She hopes she doesn’t sound too much like a “newbie”.

DCB was contacted by The News Review to film a cut-out in action. But since we are at the end of the bee season this has been pushed to next Spring, when the bee season starts back up.

Calls for questions were taken, a call for those that need/want mentors was taken, Robert put out the request for anyone knowing of another meeting place for DCB. Attendance lately has been very well and it seems we are out-growing the Abby’s Annex.

Bee School will start back up in October. We are very excited about the new syllabus and format of the classes. We have 6 topics chosen (one for each Bee School session). 3 of the classes (presentations) are completed, 1 is being worked on and 2 more to be competed. Each session will have a power point presentation with Q&A afterwards and additional handouts of other pertinent bee keeping information that may or may not coincide with the “PPP”. Bee School is on the second Sunday of each month at 2pm at the Abby’s Annex –remember, it starts back up in October (after the busy bee season and all the festivals are done!)

Great Meeting, everyone!

Robert adjourned the meeting a bit early due to the room was just too hot.

Beau Miakinkoff ~ secretary/treasurer

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General Meeting

June 1, 2022

Abby’s Annex

Robert Baune called the meeting to order at 6:00pm –maybe a few minutes earlier

29 people were in attendance (with 5 being first time attendees.)

2 people excused themselves from the meeting – more to follow on this

Robert asked the visitors and first time attendees to introduce themselves and let us know what type of hive they are using to keep bees if they are already beekeepers.

About this time in the meeting, Beau got a swarm report call in! She took down the information and offered the swarm up to the attendees at the meeting. Going once, going twice…. if you want this swarm, its yours…go now, or I’m going to put it on the swarm call alert out to the members… A member in attendance claimed it and scooted out of the meeting!

Robert resumed the meeting…. discussing the up-coming cut-outs that are scheduled. There were 6.

Meeting interrupted again with Beau’s phone going off….. it is another swarm report call. Again, it was offered up for grabs to the attending members Going one, going twice…seriously, if you want this swarm of bees say so now and go get it, if none of you want them I’ll put it on the DCB Swarm Alert to the members….. it was claimed. Another attendee of the meeting scooted out, excited to go scoop up the bees!

Robert turned the meeting over to Beau for the treasurer and secretary reports. There is $3,044.18 in the checking account and the savings account remains unchanged with $2,009.32 We incurred expenditures of office supplies (printer ink) New DCB business cards, and facility rent. Incoming funds were for dues and donations. We have 57 members, 42 of them on the swarm call alert, and 26 pm the cut-out waiting list with 17 still to receive a colony. Beau mentioned there are still 3 Queen Bee gift certificates from Old Sol Apiary (in Rogue River) available to purchase. They are $43.00 each.. There is not expiration date. A call will be made to Shastina re: donations to DCB for the 2022 Fair.

Linda Jensen and Ivory Los Banos (event chair and event chair assistant) gave us an update on the Blooms and Butterflies, the Lavender Festival, and the DC Fair volunteers to staff the DCB Booth. Also an update on the Sutherlin Blackberry Festival and the Winston Melon Festival. Another email will be sent out to the members with the schedule of the time slots needed to be filled for the events we are already going to attend and we are still waiting to hear back from the coordinators of the Blackberry and Melon festivals to learn if we will be included. So stay tuned for 2 more events happening in August and September to be added to the schedule.

The DCB Facebook page is being improved upon. Beau has populated the “services” portion. And has an understanding now of where the “missing” posts are going. Pages are so much more cumbersome to manage than Groups are.

Robert brought up the observation that the blackberries are in bloom all around Douglas County right now. It arrived early this year. This impacts our bees. Dearth is officially here when the blackberries are finished blooming. So be on the alert to have to FEED your bees. Help them get enough food stored so that they can get through the fall months and survive winter. This is an important step in helping your bees overwinter and still be here for you next Spring. Lets be better beekeepers and raise the survival rate of our colonies.

This also means that our cut-out schedule is in crunch time. We have limited weekends available now to save the bees. We will be trying to schedule the easy ones (the ones not needing scaffolding) during the weekdays saving weekends for the more complicated rescues. There will be cut-outs scheduled for Saturday and Sunday for the more complicated jobs. We welcome anyone that does not have a 9 – 5 job that is able to work in high places on scaffolding – if need be — to help our cut-out crews during the weekdays. At the time of this meeting, we had 6 cut-outs to schedule. As of the time of writing these minutes of the meeting, we have 8.

Beau mentioned during the meeting that Douglas County Bees has THE best cut-out crews in the whole state. And you ALL truly are The Best! It has taken us 2 years to achieve this level of efficiency at cut-outs. I, (Beau) is so very proud of all of you. Your passion to rescue and save these little creatures with the utmost loving care that you put into it shows. Douglas County Bees has a respected name and a recognized service to the community because of it. We would not be at this level without our Cut-Out Crew!

A round robin style of Q&A with those in attendance offered up some interesting Qs with fun As. I love this club. You all have wonderful sense humors…or is it wonderful senses of humor? All I can say is the meeting was fast and fun. Sometimes I think an hour is not long enough to cover everything.

Oh, Kent Wallace won the dinner raffle. <3

Robert called for any more Qs or new items and none were offered. Robert adjourned the meeting at little early too…I think with 10 minutes remaining.

See you all next month….if not sooner at a cut-out!

Beau Miakinkoff ~ secretary/treasurer

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General Meeting

May 4th, 2022

Abby’s Annex

31 in attendance

The Meeting was called to order by Robert Baune at 6pm

Two New visitors were present and they introduces themselves and told us at what level/stage of

beekeeping they are. Robert reported on how many swarm calls (10 with one being Not a swarm) and how many cut-outs have been completed (6). At present, there are no cut-outs scheduled and there are none waiting to be scheduled. It is early yet, so the calls will come in! Robert spoke about the last cut-out that had enough room for parking people so we opened it up for an opportunity for members to come participate as a spectator! A big thank you to all that helped! The entire process went smoothly. The colony that was rescued was approx. 21K bees + the queen, 10 frames honey, 10 frames brood. It has been reported that the bees are happy and settled nicely in their new Langstroth home. So far for this bee season, this is the largest colony that has been removed from a structure.

People were still entering the meeting and four more are visitors, but we did not get to them for introductions.

Beau reported that the FB page now has 1046 followers! It is perfectly ok for DCB members to post pictures, start a discussion, share your own honey bee keeping experiences, and ask questions on the FB page.

There is $2,879.82 in the checking account at the end of April. This represents $138.21 expenditures and $381.00 receipts. The Glide Wild Flower show brought in $66.00 ! Thank you everyone that participated at this event! The savings account has remained unchanged. There is $2,009.32 in here with $150.00 being the Bee School and $1,859.32 being non-designated.

Of the donation requests/collections that have been sent out for the Douglas County Fair, we are still waiting on two responses. One of those two has been reissued via a snail mail letter due to not being sure that the “contact” device is functioning properly on their website. We have received 5 gift certificates from Old Sol Apiaries for queen bees.

A topic for discussion was started to determine how these were handled in past years because Beau was not sure how to go about having these at the DC Fair. Ivory was present at the meeting and shed some illumination of how the queen bee gift certificates were used. She indicated that most people that are not beekeepers don’t know that you need more than just a queen bee to start beekeeping. It has been mostly beekeepers that would buy raffle tickets for this item. In the past, the queen bee gift certificates were “auctioned” off within the club. There were a few suggestions as to how DCB should use these donated queen bee gift certificates. The best one that Beau liked is:Auction 4 of the gift certificates to club members and save 1 for the “raffle ticket” table at the fair. Keep in mind that these are Fund Raising items for DCB! These certificates have a face value of $43.00 . I visited Old Sol Apiary’s web site and learned that this value corresponds to their Spring Survivor Stock (over wintered queens). They also have Caucasian queens for $70.00, and after June 21^st will have Summer Survivor Stock for $36.55. There are no expiration dates on these certificates. You will have to pay for shipping – or enjoy a nice beautiful drive to Rogue River to pick up your queen bee in person. [on the way home from the meeting, Robert suggested to buy the certificate at face value and save it for when you need a new queen.] This is an excellen idea. Beau, being the treasurer, made a DCB Board text request to Charley, Vice President for approval. Which resulted in a unanimous agreement to offer 4 of the gift certificates at face value to the DCB members to purchase. One of the gift certificates will be on the raffle table at the DC Fair this year. With all that being said….. BEAU has purchased one gift certificate. That leaves just 3 remaining for the club members to buy. FYI: it is first to call BEAU to claim it/first to buy it = the first one to get it!

We are still trying to get into the Blackberry Festival in Sutherlin in August for 2 days and the Melon Festival in Winston in September for 3 days. Linda Jensen, event chair will follow up on this. If we can get these 2 festivals included on our event calendar, the summer will be all filled up for us. [It is important that DCB participate in as many events and festivals around Douglas County as we possibly can. It supports our Constitution and Bylaws mission of informing and educating the public about honey bees and helping them to survive.]

Ivory, event chair assistant went through the list of up-coming events that still need to have volunteers staff the booth. An email will be sent out again with the schedule slots that remain to be filled.

While other discussions were going on, Beau let Ann Fuller pull the raffle ticket for the Dinner Winner. Ann won! I don’t understand how this keeps happening. The person I get to pull a ticket out of the little ticket box has been the winner almost every time! I want to thank everyone for participating in the Dinner Raffle. It makes for a very good repore between Abby’s and DCB. We are obligated to cover a minimum of $50.00 as a facility rent. Having the Dinner Raffle, takes some of that expense off of DCB and one of the participants of the Dinner Raffle gets their meal reimbursed by DCB! We all win!

Great Meeting, everyone!

Robert adjourned the meeting a little after 7pm

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General Meeting

April 6th, 2022

Abby’s Annex

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General Meeting

March 2nd, 2022

Abby’s Annex

Good afternoon  Members,

Douglas County Bees

email/newsletter February 2022

Good Evening Members,

Douglas County Bees

General Monthly Meeting

12/2/21

Abby’s Annex

Good Morning, Members!

Douglas County Bees

General Monthly Meeting

11/3/21

Abby’s Annex

14 members in attendance and

1 visitor, soon to be a member

The winner of the dinner reimbursement was Megan MacPhearson

(for future meetings please note: you must present your receipt to claim your raffle ticket winnings.) DCB can not reimburse you if you do not keep the receipt for your purchase! Beau’s ticket was drawn first and she opted to let someone else win. The next two tickets that were drawn, the winners did not have receipts for their dinner purchase…4^th time is the charm!

Meeting started at 7:00pm.

Robert (president report)brought in 2 styles of “catch boxes” that can also have an alternative use as a nuc box and a Top Bar Hive for demonstration. It is suggested that for next year’s cut-out season that the Langstroth hive beekeepers be prepared to “close up” their hives smaller than the 10 or 8 frame to about a 5 or 4 frame if the cut-out colony is too small to be put into the regular size. Or have a nuc box on hand already. After reviewing the losses on the cut-out survey… it was discovered that most of the absconds were from Langstroth hives that were too spacious for the little colonies that were rescued. Top Bar Hive beekeepers do not have this issue as the follower board allows for adjusting the hive to lesser amounts of frames to be given to the bees to use until they “build up” to needing more room.

Robert also brought in the newest version of the bee vacuum top. It has been upgraded for more convenient use and protection of the battery unit. Hopefully it won’t get all sticky with drippy honey and wet from trying to clean it.

Beau (secretary report)had 3 emails that came to DCB that were requests to share the info with the club:

1. OSBA (we are affiliated with them via our LLC) is conducting a Go Fund Me fundraising campaign. Glory Bee Foods is matching all the incoming donations up to $100K. <<< That is HUGLEY generous! LOOK right on the front page of the ORSBA.org website for the link. It is at the very top in an orangish shaded box! Click on it and it will take you to the directly to the Go Fund Me Account to donate to Oregon State Beekeeping Association!

2. Galena Farms ells wooden hives on line and has requested a list of local apiaries that he could refer people to when they ask him “where can I buy bees”. We could only come up with one and that was Old Souls in Rogue River. Dallas Amer sells his bees through DC Co-Op and not to the public.

3. Fred Selby, II has requested that we let our club members know that his business is Sweet Home Bees. He sells bee packages, nucs, and queens. His phone number is 541-223-8008. I am assuming he is located in Sweet Home, Oregon. We estimate Sweet Home is approx. 131 miles away from the Roseburg area and while it is not as close as Old Souls in Rogue River, he could be used as a local source to Douglas County (which is a very large county) for obtaining bees.

Beau explained about a file in the Douglas County Bees Google Office that contains approx. 137 contacts labeled General Public Contacts. This is a list of non-members of DCB that are interested in keeping in touch with DCB. They support DCB. They like to hear about when and where we will be for shows and presentations and such. Beau asked for permission to send out a holiday email asking for donations to DCB. This file has not been used for over 2 years, so we are not harassing our “friends of DCB”. We have a copy of a very nice solicitation letter way back when Gina was doing fundraising for DCB. I would like to update that letter and issue it to all the contacts in the ‘Friends of DCB” file. A vote was taken and passed. Beau will get this letter out closer to Thanksgiving.

Beau (treasurer) reported that there is $3,860.12 in the checking account We took in $48.00 from the Costco Employee donations and spent $105.35 in expenditures. Most of the expenses were for getting new DCB business cards for Robert and Charley.

The Board made an Executive Decision of taking half of the Ford Foundation donation that we got last month and given it to Kimberly as startup/seed money to help her get the DCB Bee School up and running. How this has been designated was by creating a new column in the Savings Account records titled Bee School. $150.00 was logged into that column and the Non-designated fund column was recorded as having ($150.00). As Kimberly submits receipts for her expenditures, they will be logged in against her $150.00 allowance. Her allowance will be revisited in a few months and determined if it needs more funds. It is our hopes that Bee School will become self sufficient in time.

The Savings account has $2,798.22 in it. Non-designated funds $1,820.05. Bee School $150.00. Equipment Fund $38.00. Cut-out crew $790.00

Kimberly (education chair) progress report of what has been done so far, what is still in the planning was discussed. We do have a date for the first Bee School session. This will be November 14^th, 2021. Sunday at 2:00pm. (there were no Saturday times available at Abby’s Annex) The main topic to cover is “Winterizing Your Hive”. Please attend this free class for members of DCB. This is a new venture for the club and very much needed. It is intended to help all of our beekeepers to improve our skills in being the very best stewards of our beloved honey bees.

Questions from our members and Round Robin about what’s happening with your hive:

It was asked: Why do we have the general meetings so late?

It was answered: This is the time that was established when we were still meeting at the court house. (something to do with after house at the court house)

A discussion ensued: Can we change the time? Can we change the day? After fielding several options on both, it was concluded that the day change was really not feasible…nobody wants to give up Saturday family time and finding a Saturday location is extremely difficult (ego, what happened to having Bee School on Saturday). So the general meeting day every month will remain the on the first Wednesday of each month at Abby’s Annex, but the time to start the meeting will be at 6:00pm instead of 7:00pm. And we can be eating our dinner during the meeting. A vote was taken and passed. So… come early to order your dinner, meeting starts at 6:00pm now. Website and FB will be updated with these changes.

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General Meeting

October 6^th , 2021

Abby’s Annex- Roseburg

13 members in attendance

start 7:00pm – adjourned 7:45pm

Thank you for coming early (6:00pm) and ordering dinner before the meeting. It was a huge success. Abby’s is happy with our “facility rent”. Dean Jones was the winner of the raffle to get his meal reimbursed.

Robert opened the meeting with a report on survival of the cut-out colonies of the 2021 season. DCB performed 30 cut-outs. 19 of them are still alive and doing well as we enter into the fall and winter months. This is approx 64% survival. WAY better than last year’s stats. Kudos to our members for making an effort to save the bees!

Beau gave the treasurer report: The checking account has a balance of $3,637.48 . This represents $47.00 worth of expenditures and $305.00 worth of donations. The big donation of $300.00 came from The Ford Foundation’s program of matching a donation and then sending it to the intended designation. DCB is very grateful to Donna Wolford for thinking of us and making this generous contribution.

The savings account has a balance of $2,798.15 . This represents $1,970.05 non designated funds, $38.00 in the equipment fund, and $790.00 in the cut-out crew fund.

Beau commenced the Annual Election of the Board and Chair person’s for DCB

Robert Baune was nominated and unanimously approvedto serve as President for another year

Charlie Moyer was nominated and unanimously approved to serve as Vice President for the up-coming 2022 year

Beau Miakinkoff volunteered to continue to serve as Secretary/Treasurer for another year and and perform all the duties of Chairs that she has been doing for the IT/FB/Website. This was unanimously approved.

Kimberly Kinney was nominated and unanimously approved to fill the Education Chairperson.

Tony Beerbohm was nominated and unanimously approved to fill the Liaison Chairperson.

Robert and Beau will (as a team) volunteered to continue doing the swarm call service, and cut-out coordination as the system that was set up for this is working nicely, with all the paperwork that is involved to document and be in compliance with the 501(c)3 status. The only thing that is really changing here is Beau will field the swarm calls, taking Phil’s place. This was unanimously approved.

A plea was issued for someone to step forward to fill the Events Chairperson. Beau explained what all was involved. Linda Jensen volunteered! She was unanimously approved.

I am DELIGHTED to announce that DCB has a full staff again! Let us all hope for a fun, safe, and prosperous 2022 year!!!!

Our website will be updated to reflect all these wonderful staff changes!

Leah Fulk is the recipient of the OSBA Certificate to attend the Fall Conference this year. We will be looking forward to her report of all the classes she attended.

Leah Fulk indicated she would donate a computer to Linda Jensen so that she has the tools to be Events Coordinator for us.

Beau will be in contact with Leah and Kimberly to schedule a time for them to come learn how to use the DCB Google Office on-line. (empowering others to help DCB is very exciting!)

New business cards will be issued for Charlie Moyer and Robert Baune. Tony Beerbohm indicated he does not want business cards with his name on it….but he will take a stack of the ones with Robert’s name on them. (he does not want ppl calling him with questions. He has no problems being the liaison, he is better at directing people to the proper source…and that is what we need.)

The remainder of the meeting was turned over to our newly installed Education Chairperson, Kimberly Kinney to give us a little insight into the DCB Bee School that is going to begin soon. Emails with details will be forthcoming as soon as the classes can be organized. We already have 4 members wanting to attend , possibly 6. (I want to attend too, so count that in there somewhere.)

With no more business to take care of and attendees already breaking up into groups for private chit-chat and idea-sharing (this was really great to see happening!) The meeting was officially adjourned at 7:45pm

I (Beau) went home SOOOOOOOOOOO happy that DCB has a full staff again! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General Meeting

9/1/2021

Abby’s Annex-Roseburg

7:00pm – 8pm

Robert Baune – President, opened the meeting with a Welcome greeting to 11 people in attendance.

3 were guests with one of them joining DCB. Robert will be calling the recipients of the cut-out bees for the 2021 season to get a “before winter” survival hive count. Then in the Spring, will follow up again so get a “winter survival” count. This information is needed for the survey that is published by OSU. Last year I believe only 2 people participated in that survey. This time, we want to fill out they survey on behalf of Douglas County Bees. This data collection will also enable us to determine where we need to improve on “saving the bees” in our community. We are making huge strides already with the much improved method of vacuuming the bees at Cut-outs. The survival rate has been WAY better than last year’s (2020) bee season.

Beau Miakinkoff – Treasurer report, The 2021 Douglas County Fair has to date netted DCB $343.94 into the general fund checking account. We took in $668.22 of raffle ticket sales and donations and have paid out $324.28 in expenditures of replacing the supplies that were depleted. Supplies of fliers, pamphletes, booklets, magazines, seed packets, honey. Anything that was completely gone has been replenished save for a new supply of American Bee Journal and any contributions from Shastina Millworks.

I have already received a donation of a box of 50 Bee Culture Magazines (I’m mixing it up a bit just to get a variety) Will be contacting American Bee Journal soon. I am still awaiting the replenishment of the OSU Extension Service Residential Beekeeping booklet – its on its way to us. I have most of all the pamphlets and informational cards and fliers, and some new ones back in stock. I found free quantities of “cooking with honey” booklets, and “honey bee stickers” for kids….we only had to pay the $9.95 shipping for those. The pollinator wildflower seeds and packaging supplies have been replenished too…those, we had to pay for.

Secretary report, we have 53 members now! Phil Moulton stepped down from his duties as Vice President at the later end of August due to his increased health issues. As a result of this, the remaining board members held a meeting and discovered that there are no provisions in our Constitution and By-laws that address a board member stepping down/resigning. We made one. And since it is only one month before DCB has our annual board/chair elections, it was prudent to appoint an interim Vice President until the October General Meeting, at which time we will hold our scheduled election. Charley Moyer has agreed to step in and assume the Vice President duties for DCB in the mean time. Because DCB is an LLC with a 501(c)(3) status, it is imperative that we have a minimum of 3 signing board members on our bank account. Charley has been officially registered at our bank to handle both checking and savings account transactions.

FYI: for the October 2021 general meeting/election, DCB is in need of chair persons for Education, Event Organizer, Community/Club Liaison, – and I would like to see a chair person to take photo records at cut-outs and possibly events.

Hand-outs at the meeting were on “how to make sugar syrup to feed your honey bees” and “the honey bees’s visual understanding /what colors do bees see (and painting bee hives). Both topics were openly discussed along with treating for mites. There was some round robin participation with what’s happening with attendee’s hives.

DCB Bee school is in the process of creating classes for all members to help with improving beekeeping skills. This is for all levels of beekeeping. The call has been made for any DCB member to make a syllabus for any topic of beekeeping to present at a class. Classes will be during the winter months. (October, November, December) For now, please contact Beau to coordinate your ideas and presentations. Beau will do the first one titled: So You Want To Become A Bee Keeper! (an introduction to bee keeping) And will cover types of hives, what bees do during the seasons, what we do for the bees during the seasons. When the classes will be and where are still to be determined.

Abby’s Annex has ample room for all in attendance to spread out and keep a social distance. Masks were required to enter the restaurant and place your dinner order. Abby’s staff deliver the order to the Annex for you. Our agreement with Abby’s is that we have the building from 6pm to 8pm. So you have time to come early, eat dinner, and the meeting will begin on time at 7pm. They only thing Abby’s requests is that DCB spends a minimum of $50.00 in food purchases per meeting. This is not a huge problem with 5 or 6 members arriving early to have dinner this will easily be achieved.

To encourage members to participate in reaching our “rent for the meetings”, I proposed, via a DCB Board e-mail meeting that DCB will give out tickets to the members that purchase a meal and at the opening of the meeting, will draw a winner to have their meal reimbursed! Robert seconded it, Charley approved!

At the time of the writing of these minutes, I got a call that Phil Moulton passed away yesterday, September 1^st, 2021. Memorial arrangements are pending. As soon as I am notified, I will forward the information to the Bee Club members. Cheryl did ask that she did not wish for condolence cards to be sent to the house. She instead insisted that Phil would want those that felt inclined to make memorial contributions to DCB instead of flowers and such.

On a personal note: Phil was my beekeeping mentor. He will be missed.

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General Meeting/Newsletter

August 8th, 2021

August 8, 2021
email/news letter

Good afternoon Members!
Since we did not have an in person monthly general meeting on the 4th of this month.  This email will
serve as the &quot;business&quot; end of the general  meeting that would have transpired.
Treasurer Report:  There is $3,000.74 in the checking account. This represents outgoing costs of $50.00
to file our Oregon Business Registry, $14.00 refund of new membership dues overpaid, and $80.26 for
office supplies needed in preparation of the Fair.  The incoming funds are $24.00 in new membership
dues, $25.56 from our Fred Meyer Community Rewards, and $56.00 from our wonderful supporters at
Costco via their employee charitable donation program.
The Fair&#39;s donations and raffle ticket sales will be recorded in the August books – which  will be
reported at September&#39;s General Monthly Meeting.
The savings account has $2,798.15 .  This represents $1,970.15 non-designated funds, $38.00 in
equipment funds, and $790.00 in cut-out crew funds
,
Secretary Report:  We have 52 members in Douglas County Bees. I&#39;m very pleased to see this
membership increase.  I don&#39;t think we are quite yet at the level it was pre-covid….but we will keep
trying.
Thank you to all our  Douglas County Fair volunteers that staffed our booth and also to those that
worked behind the scenes to get everything in order so that this event was a success! (I don&#39;t think
anyone can dispute the feeling that &quot;Fair week is Hell week&quot; for DCB members! &lt;3
Upon take down this morning at our booth at the Fair…I discovered a few NEW informational fliers
that magically appeared! I do not know who contributed  these But I thank you very much.  The new
fliers are:  Community Rewards (re: how to link your Fred Meyer card to DCB and generate donations
to DCB automatically – at no charge to YOU – from Fred Meyer.  I have added on the flip side of this
flier the amazon.smiles charity donations information.  I now have a folder full of &quot;Community
Rewards&quot; fliers for the next time we attend a show.  Another flier was &quot;Oregon Label Requirements for
Extracted Honey.  This is a front and back informational page.  Those are now copied and put into a
folder waiting the next event.  The last new flier I found was the Miller Method Calendar Template.  In
color – a one pager.  Copied and in a folder for next time.  All good!  Oh, and I have master copies of
everything in the secretary&#39;s files….so that I will never have to go hunting around for the &quot;all good&quot;
things we like to use at shows.
There were a few snafus in preparing for the Fair. One of the biggest issues was communication with
our members.  I try very diligently to keep the emails current for all of our current members. Not
responding to time sensitive emails that require a response back causes problems and headaches for the
board members!   (AKA: the people –you know, the admins of this club– working behind the scenes of
the fair that need to meet deadlines and supply the  information to the admins of the FAIR that are
helping us to coordinate everything)  Making Phil have to call every single one of the volunteers is a
huge time suck.  Communication could have been so much easier if everyone cooperated and answered
their emails! I hope next year will be smooth sailing.
I&#39;ll be busy with ordering the informational brochures/magazines/cards from other organizations to

replenish what the Fair depleted.  I also have a few supplies to order like the wild flower seeds and the
little plastic bags. Will be making copies of the other informational fliers that DCB provided that are
low in stock too.
Again…. Thank you SO much to all our Fair volunteers this year.  We could not have done this without
you.  I appreciate EVERYTHING you all did for us.
I would like to add a president&#39;s comment here in this newsletter, but Robert is so busy with getting our
back deck repaired.  (A major overhaul in the making) He is almost finished.  I&#39;m just gonna take a stab
at it and offer some tips to what should be going on in August for beekeeping:  Its DEARTH now.
Check on your bees to make sure they have food. Feed them. Keep a water supply available for them.
Vent the hive to help the bees stay cool.  Remember, they feel the heat just as much as you do! It is
getting close to the yellow jacket invasion.  Prepare your hives.  Help your bees defend against these
savages!  Reduce the entrance to the hive.  Set out yellow jacket traps, Empty them often…so that you
always have room to catch and destroy more of the little yellow devils! If you are harvesting
honey….please make sure you leave enough for the bees in the hive – this is their winter food you are
taking.  Be conservative.
See ya next month at Stewart Park.

Beau Miakinkoff ~ secretary/treasurer

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General Meeting

July 7th, 2021

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General Meeting

June 2, 2021

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General Meeting

May 5th, 2021

Good Evening Members,

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General Meeting

April 7th, 2021

Stewart Park in Roseburg at 6:00pm

WOW!  What a really great turnout for our first IN PERSON meeting!  We had 14 members and 1 guest in attendance.  It was nice to get to put a face to a few more people that I have been emailing and private messaging in Face Book. Thank you for braving the chilly wind that evening. The general consensous/feed back that Robert and I have gotten has been that the meeting was a fun gathering. <3

Treasurer Report: There is $3,068.67 in the checking account. This entails eleven more memberships (A few of them are NEW members), Two donations, Two expenditures reimbursed, and one transfer of funds to the savings account.  Thes savings account is holding $2,212.00 which is divided into Non-designated funds $1,970.00 , Equipment funds $30.00 , and Cut-out Crew Funds $212.00 .

Secretary Report:  2021 membership is now at 35!  Yeah!!!!   We have a little over half of the members that we had in 2020 now! Our Facebook page had over 8000 contacts!  When we made the announcement that the 2021 Swarm Alert is had been activated, it went sudo-viral with 73 shares!  Awesome work!  Thank you to everyone that helped us get the word out in support of DCB working to save the bees! The Face Book page has 593 followers.  I used to have a visitor counter on the website hosting, but I lost it somewhere along the way.  So I have no info. for what the website is doing for us.  How the  cut-out waiting list was explained resulting in 3 more members adding their names to the list.  Cut-outs are different from Swarms.   Should there be any questions from those that did not attend the meeting, please refer to the DCB Constitution and By-Laws , and the policies and procedures for swarms and cut-outs that can be accessed on the Douglascountybees.org website.

We are completely out of the little posters “Bees of Oregon” .  I finally got in touch with the right people and we have a large quantity on its way to us at no charge!

Robert’s “two cents worth” (AKA President’s Report) :  [This is Robert’s name for the President’s report!] Robert demonstrated the bee vacuum that he got.  This model is equipped with giving the bees something to hang on to inside the “bucket” to help prevent them from getting all balled up and suffocating. It is battery operated and can be worn as a backpack for being in high places. After vacuuming up the bees, it can put on a setting to allow for continuous air flow for transporting the bees to their new location. Robert made 2 different forms with a circle in the middle of it to house the bucket (when turned upside down) so that it is easier to “dump” the bees into their new hive or if possible, leave the bucket attached and let the bees enter the hive on their own overnight.

There have been 2 bee swarms reported.  Both got responses very quickly with our own members. The club has performed 1 cut-out so far with 2 more scheduled.

Lots and lots of questions!  The rest of the meeting was filled questions.  Robert, Beau and Phil were so happy to have answers for everyone.  We hope that what we said was informative and helpful.

See you all next month!

Beau Miakinkoff- secretary/treasurer

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General (email/zoom) meeting

March 4th 2021

Good afternoon members,

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General (email) Meeting

February 3, 2021

Good evening members,

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General (email) Meeting

January 11th, 2021

Good Evening Members,

I was waiting for the snail mail to deliver our bank statement before I wrote and sent out this newsletter that will serve as our monthly general meeting notes (again).  Sure hope this not being able to meet in person will end soon.

First off…. Happy New Year to each of you!

Treasurer’s report:

Checking account has $2,749.88 as of 12/31/20  We received one membership renewal for 2021 and a check from the Costco Members Donation program…where the employees can make donations to non-profit organizations via their paychecks and then Costo uses a service through Frontstream to forward those donations to the respective non-pofit organizations that the monies were designated.  You can  imagine my surprise and shock to see a check written out to Douglas County Bees for $45.00 arrive in the mail.  I, being my skeptical self, didn’t believe it was a “real thing”  I went on line to do some investigations, called Costco to make some inquiries,and even when I took the check to the bank, asked the bank to please  verify that it is an actual check and not some scam…..like the kind that if you deposit the check into your account and then find out that your account has been wiped out clean of all the funds….those kind of checks!  LOL, luckily this Costco Check was the real deal (not a scam)

Savings account has grown by .04 cents.  Non-designated funds has a balance of $1,970.04 and the Equipment funds has $30.00

As all of you know by now, An email has been sent out calling for members to mail in your renewal dues.  $12.00 per family/household.  Since the actual meeting every month is still under Kate Brown’s extended covid restrictions it is  best to just mail in your checks to the address listed below in this email.  It is very important that you do send in your renewal application with your payment.  We will be using this application to update our member roster with a valid physical mailing address as well as any email address changes and phone number changes you provide. (we have discovered that the lack of keeping the physical mailing addresses on record, we created a snafu with getting our OSBA affiliation renewal paperwork renewal completed as they would like us to have done) Which now provides me with a nice seque — if you sing it…

Very happy to announce that our OSBA Affiliation renewal for 2021 is complete.  This allows DCB a voting seat on the OSBA Executive Commitee, A listing in the OSBA newsletter, the OSBA membersihip directory to include such things as our meeting times and place, our officers, our contact information, being on their swarm call list, and our website listed.  We also get to post our upcoming events in their newsletter “The Bee Line” and on their website.  We get recognition and iclusion in OSBA educational and support activities, a free “scholarship” to attend the OSBA Fall Conference and liability insurance coverage, when conditions are met, for approved public events.  I want to thank everyone that responded to my “urgent request for information” email that I sent out a couple days ago.

Secretary report:  I received one membership renewal in December… he sent it in early!  Please try to take care of renewing your annual membership via regular mail with your paperwork included to me as soon as possible.

I received, just today, in the mail, Amazonsmiles’ confirmation letter that they have our new address and new bank account information so they can direct deposit our Amazonsmiles earnings from the community rewards program that they have.

We are in the process of making arrangements tobattend the Umpqua Valley Home Builders Association 2021 Home And Garden Show that will take place March 5th, 6th, and 7th.  The booth space is free for DCB ( we are claiming our 501C3 status here to save money) We are only required to furnish a “Door Prize” to the Show (one for each day) in-leu of booth fees that would normally cost us $500.00.  I have already gone shopping and purchased 3 very nice bee-themed items that came to  a whopping total of $28.97 !  (I already informed Phil that I went over the budget of no more than $20.00 and he said it was all good….. that’s a good thing too, because the President of the club was with me when I purchased those items and he liked them very much and approved it on the spot… so, folks… it was all done legally!)

I do have plenty of the wild flower seed packets and the honey sticks to put out on the tables at the show for “give-a-ways” to the people that visit the booth. I have a FEW items that we can “raffle ticket” sell but would like a few more items to be donated from our members, if possible.  We can use this show as a “fund-raiser” as well as being the normal information booth about bees for the community.

Also…probably the most important…I need volunteers to man this booth.  The following is the show schedule:

Friday, March5th 11:00am – 7:00pm

Saturday, March 6th 10:00am – 5:00pm

Sunday, March 7th 10:00am – 6:00pm

Please get back to me on what days and which hours you would like to volunteer to man this booth. It’s not too difficult…you don’t have to be a BEE expert (text books will be on hand to help you look up answers to questions) Just be as helpful as possible to give out the information to people that they are looking for.  And…of course take in the $$$ for the raffle tickets that you sell for the raffle items that we will have on the table.

Please take a look at the attached photos!  We have a refurbished basic Langstroth hive to include in our booth as a demonstration model.  The only thing I have remaining to do is to clear coat the outside.  Waiting for a non-rainy, somewhat warm day to do this spraying.

Robert and I will be right across the isle from the DCB booth (we requested this on purpose so that we could be close on hand to help if needed)  We can’t man the DCB booth and the Bodacious Creations booth at the same time, so DCB members are greatly needed to step in and lend a hand here. Robert and I will  set up the booth and take down the booth.  We are there anyway doing our own booth, it is no problem for us to make the extra time to do DCB’s booth too.

Notes from the President: Robert’s suggestions for January Beekeeping is to start planning out your garden.  Cruise through seed catalogs for bee-friendly plants that your bees will love.  Prep the garden areas now while the ground is soft and will be ready for those seeds when the weather warms up.  Have you finished cleaning up the used hives and are ready for Spring time?  Do you have the new equipment prepped and ready for Spring? Robert has 3 potential cut-outs in his “follow-up” note book. He is taking names and phone numbers and asking the people that want the bees removed to please wait until Spring so that the bees have a better chance to survive. So far, the people have been very agreeable and will wait for him to call back.

I think that’s all for now, folks!  —that’s quite enough, right?  :)

Beau Miakinkoff – secretary/treasurer

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General (email)Meeting

December  7th, 2020

Good afternoon members,

I decided to wait until I got the November bank statement so that I could report accurate facts along with all the rest of what is happening and the ‘check list” for Fall beekeeping that Robert compiled.

I know it was a big disappointment to not be able to meet at the court house this month.  In an effort to keep everyone informed with Douglas County Bees business and affairs, this email will have suffice as our line of communication until we can develop something better for you.  (At the very least this is something, and way better than nothing and complete silence from your DCB Board members!)

The Treasurer’s report:  The checking account has a balance of $2,692.88 . A payment of $94.91 was an electronic transfer from the account to Harland Check Printing for our business account checks for Douglas County Bees.  They are business”safety” checks and have two lines for the signatures. They should last a while. The dollar that Beau donated to get the Paypal account back up and running NEVER hit our account.  (doesn’t matter…. Beau got fed up with Paypal’s shenannigans and fired them. Our take on the dollar donation from Paypal would have been only sixty-something cents anyway…we get a better deal with Square)  The dollar that Beau donated to Square to establish our account to receive payments via the internet was received as .81 cents.   Our 3rd quarter ending 2020 from Amazonsmiles community donations brought

in $12.41 . Here’s where I can seguay into reminding everyone to designate your Amazon account on line to participate in the community rewards.  This costs you nothing!  Amazon will automatically donate a portion of your purchase to Douglas County Bees. Also, if you shop at Fred Meyers, you can link your Fred Meyers card to a charity (Douglas County Bees) and every quarter Fred Meyers will mail us a portion of their community donations too. The savings account still has the $30.00 that we put in it last month.

We did have it arranged with Roundtable Pizza on Stewart Parkway to have our December meeting in their meeting room.  But… that got cancelled too.  Since some of our members are not able to climb the court house stairs out front to gain access to our meetings at night (the handicap access is closed after hours at the court house) we thought the Roundtable facility would serve our elderly and surgery-recovering members better.  The idea was to come a bit early, have dinner and the meeting would follow immediately afterwards.  The only requirement that Roundtable asked of us was that our group “collectively”) please spend at least $50.00 in food orders.  Which isn’t going to be a problem at all. So hopefully Oregon’s second round of “just 10 days” will allow us to meet at Roundtable in January 2021.

We have been getting calls and inquiries about colonies of bees from cut-outs/relocations for 2021. Instead of telling people to call back in the Spring when it is more bee-friendly to “re-home” the bees, we have started a list of recipients along with potential cut-out locations should the bees survive the winter where they are at present.

Beau is still working on the donated langstroth hive that the club will be using as a demonstration tool in the future should we ever be allowed to attend shows again!  It is at the decorating stage now and looking really nice.

Fall (Oct – Dec) Check List for Beekeeping:

(suggestions were taken from our favorite beekeeping manual:  Beekeeping for Dummies) Most of all of the following can be for langstroth and top bar hives.

*Inspect your hives

  -make certain the queen is present

  -verify that honey stores (capped honey) is ample for your hive to overwinter

  -feed 2:1 sugar syrup, drivert sugar if needed

  -ventilation

*Tx for pests

*Set out YJ traps

*Reduce entrances

*Install mouse guards

Going into Winter things to do:

*continue to check on hive food supplies and act accordingly

*is hive warm

*is hive dry/water protected

*monitor activity at entrance on the warmer days

Winter things to do:

*Clean, repair, store empty hives and equipment

*make wish list for new wood ware/equipment that you need/want and hopefully have it in your possession in time for Spring and ready for the bees!

Have a very Merry Christmas everyone.

Beau Miakinkoff, secretary/treasurer

Douglas County Bees

 

Douglas County Bees

Monthly General Meeting

November 4^th , 2020

Douglas County Court House Rm 310

Meeting called to order at 7:01pm

15 in attendance, including 3 new visitors of which one became a new member

Robert welcomed everyone and the visitors introduced themseves.

Beau gave a treasurer report: New banking account was brought back to Umpqua Bank at the Myrtle Creek Branch. There is $2817.50 in the checking account, $2000.00 in the savings account. An additional deposit of $73.00 cash (found in the archive accordian file amongst receipts dated 2019) was deposited to the checking account. A reimbursement of approved expenses to Robert Baune for $116.93 leaves DCB accounts with a total of $4774.57 .

The savings account will have in-house accounting and reconciliation to keep track of the “non-designated” and “designated” funds. While sorting through the old archived records, a discovery of an entry of $30.00 to an “equipment” fund was established. Beau “designated” this in the savings account records. Members at tonights meeting remember having an “Equipment Fund” but do not remember what happened to it. A “can” was passed around each general meeting and any donations to it were graciously accepted. Beau expressed a desire to revive this general meeting practice. Members agreed. Next month general meeting, Beau will have an “Equipment Fund’ donation can to pass around.

DCB 990-N to the IRS and the CT-12 to the State of Oregon has been filed for the calendar year 2019. DCB is an LLC Business with a 501c3 Status. We are obligated to take care of these business requirements annually. The 2019 filings were past due. We had an additional late fee of $20.00 attached with the State of Oregon included with our regular filing fee. We are now, at the present, all current with our tax reports for DCB.

Beau gave a secretary report: DCB has an official “inventory of equipment and supplies” notebook. All items recovered from the storage shed has been logged in, photographed and documents filed in the new notebook. These items are now being housed for FREE in a shed at 850 Cook Street. Phil has been designated to resolve the dilema of the thermal device donation from 2019.

There are some outstanding issues still to resolve with the Amazonsmiles account and the Fred Meyers account. Both of these are sources of donations to DCB will hopefully be corrected and functioning perfectly soon.

The Paypal account has been re-established. However, there are glitches with it being on the website. No isssues with it being on the FaceBook page. Beau expressed a dislike for the Paypal account being “needy”, as in it requires having to physically visit the admin side of it and actually tell the system to transfer any donations that are in the paypal holding account to our banking checking account. But, it will not transfer if paypal’s “minimum requirement of funds” is not in the holding account. Beau has already looked into SQUARE and has had phone calls with Square techies. Their system is totally autonamous. They will transfer the funds within 2 business days. No one has to do anything else with the account. Beau asked if she could be allowed to dump the Paypal and get a Square donation button for both the website and the FaceBook. Members agreed.

Beau announced that the DCB member emails list can be made more private/secure for our members. (testing was performed earlier today and it worked beautifully) In keeping with our statement on the DCB New Membership Form “membership information is not shared outside of the group without your consent” it is fitting to keep it secure inside the group as well, just in case a member forwards the email to another person outside the club. Our membership email list is too large to send all at once. It has to be split into two groups. Members will see emails coming from Douglas County Bees with either the President or Vice President openly listed. (the two groups) All other members save for the sole member to which the email is being sent will be hidden in the Bcc tab. (bind carbon copy) Members at the meeting liked this change very much.

A presentation on the Asian Giant Hornet was conducted. The 2 You-Tube videos that were intended to accompany the presentation did not get to be shown. It appears there is not available WIFI at the courthouse. Beau will send emails to the members in attendance tonight with the links to the 2 videos.

Robert initiated the Round Robin and everyone got to talk about and ask questions pertaining to their own hives.

Meeting adjourned 8:00-ish.

Beau Miakinkoff – secretary 11/4/20

DCB Meeting Minutes

October 7^th, 2020

Douglas County Court House 7:07pm – 8:08ish pm.

11 members in attendance

Treasurer report was submitted by Jack via an email to Phil. Phil brought in a copy of the email and handed it to Beau. Beau read the Treasurer report out loud to the members present which gained questions immediately. 1. what State Business in the amount of $50.00 that Jack reimbursed himself for? Please identify what it is, why didn’t he issue a DCB check for this. 2. Why is Jack paying for the storage fees and then reimbursing himself for this too? Does not DCB have a debit/credit card to take

the recurring charges as expenses for the club?

Also in this email was an issue with the OSBA asking if the club had any nominees for their annual scholarship award. A discussion ensued about what are the criteria for nominations, what expenses are covered to attend, and is it a virtual setting or an in person setting. All questions were answered save for the in-person setting. A phone call to OSBA will be made to clarify this and then we can/will/maybe put out an email asking if there is any members interested in attending. Put all names of those that are interested in a hat and make it a “lottery” drawing.

Jack also mentioned in his email that other bee clubs have been doing Zoom meetings but are fraught with technical issues. This sparked a few more discussions along the lines that Zoom is not the only option to hold virtual meetings. There is FB group chat for a club meeting. Conference calling via phone for Board meetings, and there is a video and audio type of system being used on FB that could be easily adapted for our Bee Club use if needed/wanted.

Nominations for President was Robert Baune, seconded, voted and confirmed.

Beau Miakinkoff volunteered to take the Secretary position, seconded, voted and confirmed.

Beau Miakinkoff volunteered to take the Treasurer position, seconded, voted and confirmed.

All other board positions and chair positions that were currently being held, remain the same. DCB is still needing volunteers for the following chair positions: Education Chair, Events Chair, and Community/Club Liason Chair.

It was discussed after the voting was confirmed, the issue of the new board members’ “shadowing” the former board members for the next two months and in January of the new year, take over (as per the DCB Constitution and Bylaws). Being that there is no one present to “shadow” and Beau is skilled at performing secretarial duties and is a former accountant she would not mind taking over immediately rather than in January. Robert, likewise had no issue with beginning the presidential duties now rather than later. The club agreed.

Other business issues that were discussed: Who is in possession of the P.O. Box key, Who is the owner of the drivert sugar in the storage unit, elinimating the storage unit out at the airport and taking Cynthia and Charlie Moyer’s offer of using the “shed” at their place as a space donation to the club, changing the procedure for the DCB new membership form to allow signature line to include that the member is reponsible for accessing the DCB’s Constitution and Bylaws as well as the Policy on Extractions/Cutouts/Swarms on line and printable for themselves thus eliminating the costly expense to the club of printing (paper and ink) for the new members. This leaves only 2 pages for the club to print for the new members: the New Membership form and the Welcome to Douglas County Bees informational page.

Also a time saver for the secretary… the minutes of all the DCB meetings will be posted to the website. All members that wish to be informed are welcome to visit the website for the latest meeting minutes. The next email to send to the members re: October 2020 general meeting minutes will be the last one to do this. Beginning November 2020 members can go to the website for this information.

Round Robin style Q&A with members re: beekeeping issues with what’s going on with their hives.

 

Douglas County Bee Club

Monthly Meeting

September 2, 2020

Singleton Park 7:00pm – 7:49pm

Phil is presiding over the meeting tonight.

Treasurer Report was turned in as an account balance statement (Database production issued by the bank) by Dave. He still has not received the Treasurer records and documents (banking check book, debit card) from Jack and has been unable to perform his Treasurer duties. The Database production indicates there is $4,457.90 in the checking account and one dollar in the savings account. Several members in attendance asked why only one dollar in the savings account and shouldn’t some of those funds in the checking account be in the savings account. It would be nice if the club could get a report of income and expenditures each month.

Phil’s digital refractometer was used to test the moisture content of honey samples that were bought to the meeting. There were 4 samples. All tested very well inside the acceptable amount of moisture for honey. There were samples of harvested honey that was blended with vanilla/orange, uncapped honey comb, capped honey come, and honey that was drained from comb that came from a recent cut-out from Sutherlin. This device proved to be easy to use. Thank you Phil for sharing.

Round Robin Q&A with members in attendance to address issues with their beekeeping issues and what’s going on with their hives. Yellow Jacket problems and other honey bees robbing was the hot topic. Beau brought a gallon baggie full of bees wax to show the group, that has been recovered via the solar wax melter that Robert built. 1 member in attendace inquired about any drivert sugar still available in the DCB Club stores. Phil responded with he thinks there are 4-6 bags remaining, after which one other member expressed interest in obtaining some. However, access to the storage unit is still not available yet due to the fire that happened out at the storage units at the airport. An inquiry was also made regarding if the club has a honey extractor. It was determined that the club does not have one to lend out. Other members own honey extractors, but the club does not.

The “park sheriff” came around to let us know he was closing the park soon. The meeting kinda disbursed after that.

Beau substituted for the secretary this evening. Minutes will be sent to Phil for emailing to the club due to Beau not having the email list.

11 members were in attendance.

Douglas County Bees

August 5, 2020

Informal meeting

9 members attending

No treasury report

Show and tell

Phil had jars of honey from uncapped comb from cutouts that were kept cool in a fruit cellar but have been fermenting due to the high moisture content.  The bees do not like but the yellow jackets apparently love it.  With uncapped honey it is better to leave out for your bees to salvage or leave the frames covered and allow the moisture to evaporate out and then extract.   A recommendation was if the frame is less than 75% capped do not extract until the frame is fully capped.

David showed his $45 Varroa  mite test kit he purchased on amazon.  The Kit comes with powdered sugar, measuring cup, tray, water container and screened lidded jar.  Measure bees into the jar with the sugar and roll for about a minute coating the bees and shaking off the mites.  Pour sugar on to the tray, spay with water to dissolve the sugar and count the mites.  The bees can then be reintroduced back into the hive.  As a precaution, remember not to treat new hive for mites the first year, wait until the next spring.

Discussion Items

Beau reported that Yellow jackets cleaned out a new hive in just a couple of days. The hive was an observation hive and the battle was visible.  The Yellow Jackets were biting off bees heads and pulling larvae out of the cell.  The bees didn’t have a chance.   An example of homemade wasp traps on the web page and on our Facebook page.

Robert had small cement trowels that he had sharpened the edges for use on cutouts.  He had lanyards attached to handle so the trowel will hang on your wrist when not being used.

A lecture on line recommends replacing the comb in your hives every 5 years to remove impurities that build up in the wax.

Beau suggested the swarm list be organized so members can tell who is in line to get a swarm; the list would be organized on a first come first served basis.  If the member first on the list is unavailable or can’t go get the swarm then the next member would be called or emailed.  Members receiving a swarm or not responding to the notification would fall to the bottom of the list.

A second list was proposed for cutouts. the list would contain where, when, who got the bees and who helped.  Phil is keeping a list of some of these items.

Beau also suggested virtual meetings when the weather turns colder.  This idea was received with mixed feelings.  The details of conducting such a meeting would have to be researched and presented to the membership for discussion.

Meeting adjourned at 8:13

8/18/20 Beau sent in corrections to these minutes:

I have a correction to the minues of the August meeting regarding the swarm lists.  The two lists concern the cut-out portion of the “rehoming” portion of this service that the club provides for free to the public.  And was recommended in an effort to clear up any miscmmunications of which member is getting the bees that are to be rehomed.  One list is for who is next in line to receive the bees.  The other list is to make is public to all members of where the cut0out took place, who worked the event, and who got the bees.  The SWARM collection is up for any member to claim and go fetch them on their own.

There were 3 out of the 4 board members present at this meeting and this suggestion was not unapproved.  Phil authorized the changes to the Constitution and By-laws of the club and to the Swarm/Cut-out/Extraction guidelines.

Douglas County Bees
June 3, 2020

Type of Meeting: Monthly Meeting
Meeting called to order at 7:00 by President Jack Reilly at Singleton Park
22 members attended
New Business
No new business
Old Business
In past meetings, it was decided that the demand for Drivert Sugar was not enough to warrant
buying a full pallet. The storage space for a full pallet was also an issue. The Medford club has not
responded to our request to go in halves on a pallet so the Lane Co. group will be contacted to see
if they have a local source.
Type of sugars to feed bees in on the D C Bees webpage and it was emphasized that cane sugar
and drivert sugar are the best.
The following is an excerpt that explains drivert sugar is. The link below takes you to the web page
that also discusses various sugars and why they are good of bad for bees.
Drivert sugar is a dry fondant sugar that has been agglomerated with 8% invert sugar. Invert sugar
is a mix of glucose and fructose created by heating pure sugar (sucrose) with water. In simple
terms, it is 92% pure sugar (sucrose) with 8% glucose/fructose in powder form.
Reference: www.keepingbackyardbees.com/what-kind-of-sugar-should-i-feed-my-bees/
One couple explained that powdering regular sugar in a Vitamix food processer works well for them
as a substitute for Drivert Sugar.
Cash and Carry may have Drivert Sugar
Roundtable discussion
One member had bees building comb on the bottom of her screened bottom hive. It was suggested
to insert the bottom board and brush the bees off the bottom in hopes that they will reenter the hive.
A hive from a recent cut out was put in a top bar hive and is doing very well.
If a hive is not very active or building numbers of bees, requeening might help. This can be
accomplished by removing a frame from a second hive that contains freshly laid eggs and covered
brood. Find the poorly producing queen and kill her leaving her in the hive so the bees recognize
the need to raise a new queen. They will do this by taking an egg from the inserted frame and put it
in a queen cell to make their own new queen.
One member reported that a hive that was doing very well suddenly seemed to be in trouble. He
suggested that spraying around a substation may have been the cause. Bees can be locked in the
hive for a day or two if spraying in the vicinity is suspected.
Borage as a bee foraging source was discussed. Borage is hard to transplant but once established
it is very hearty. Deer also love it, so some protection may be needed.
The proper way to use queen excluders as explained. Queen excluders will keep the queen from
entering a honey super and laying eggs. An excluder also keeps drones out of the honey supers.
Excluders need to be installed between the main hive boxes and the honey supper a couple of days
after the honey supper is added. The delay will give the worker bees time to get used to entering
the super and except the super as part of the hive.
YouTube is a large source of bee keeping information, but members need to be aware that videos
from other parts of the country may not apply the our area and not all videos are from reliable
sources.
Meeting adjourned at 8:12

Douglas County Bees
March 4, 2020

Type of Meeting: Monthly Meeting

Meeting called to order at 7:00 by Jack

31 members and 6 guests were in attendance

Minutes from last meeting were approved without changes.

Treasurer’s Report – $3783.19

New Business

Dawn Whit requested the club donate an item to the Veteran’s celebration. Donating bees was not thought to be a good idea because we did not know who would get them. Honey was also suggested. Jack will pay for a basket that Dawn will put together for the club donation.

Jack suggested an article that lets bee keepers know what to look for when inspecting the underside of you hives and frames because those areas are generally over looked.

beeinformed.org/2020/01/31/look-down/

Another article was mentioned concerning stealing hives, generally from the larger yards which can amount to large sums of money for the owners. This is also being reported in Medford area as well as the Willamette Valley. The thieves have been asking landowners to be able to put bees on their property.

Old Business

Jack is paying for a 5×10 foot storage locker at Tom Thumb storage located at 3221 NW Edenbower Blvd. Once the unit is set up a combination lock will be used and the combination available for club members. The club voted to authorize Jack to pick up some shelves for the locker.

The subject of club attendance at shows and events was discussed. The same small group of members have been volunteering for the events. It was voted to limit the club presence at the annual plants sell and the fair with the glide wildflower show added.

The Myrtle Cr. cutout bees died over the winter but the owner of the property wants his bees. The owner will at least get his hardware back.

There was another short discussion about ordering a pallet of Divert sugar. With the few members who actually wanted a bag it was decided not pursue a large quantity of bags.

There is still a need for an event organizer. No volunteers stepped forward to fill this very important position.

Roundtable discussion

The 6 visitors do not as yet have bees yet. The Co-op was suggested as a source

Swarms were explained to newcomers and it was recommended for beginners go to a swarm capture to see how it all works.

Bees for dummies was suggested again as a good start

A demonstration on splitting a hive was requested. Ivory will do one at the next meeting.

The timing of splitting was also discussed.

A clear view top inner cover was shown. Both 10 and 8 frame models can be bought from Bee Gold Honey.

The web page is down and the question was do we need it. With face book still active as an informational page and. Jack will contact Kevin concerning the web page.

~~~

Douglas County Bees

February 5, 2020

Type of Meeting: Monthly Meeting
Meeting called to order at 7:00 by
members and guests were in attendance
Minutes from last meeting were approved without changes.
Treasurer’s Report – $3783.19 plus $136 dollars in new dues.
New Business
Phil sent a report about the bees lost in Australia due to wildfires which will restrict the honey from Manuka bushes that is very desirable worldwide due to different anti-bacterial activity then regular honey. The shortage will affect the supply of this expensive honey for years to come.
33rd master gardeners show is May 2 at the fairgrounds. The subject will be brought up at the next meeting.
The Earth Day celebration at the Fairgrounds is April 11 2020.
SOBA bee class will be held at Ashland on April 18th, costs $45. The class is pretty much a full day affair and could benefit beginners and seasoned bee keepers.
Old Business
There was a short discussion about ordering a pallet of that is Drivert Sugar. Vote was again tabled until next meeting due to the relative small numbers of attendees. Two members volunteered to go get the sugar if a pick-up was available. David volunteered his pickup but would need some help taking out the 5th wheel ball.
Pending a report from Jack, renting a club storage unit was tabled until next meeting
There is still a need for an event organizer. No volunteers stepped forward to fill this very important position.
Roundtable discussion
Meeting adjourned at

~~~

Douglas County Bees
January 15th, 2020

Type of Meeting: Monthly Meeting

Meeting called to order at 7:00 by Treasurer Dave Hubert

15 members and 2 guests were in attendance

Minutes from last meeting were approved without changes.

Treasurer’s Report – $3783.19 plus $136 dollars in new dues.

New Business

Phil sent a report about the bees lost in Australia due to wildfires which will restrict the honey from Manuka bushes that is very desirable worldwide due to different anti-bacterial activity then regular honey. The shortage will affect the supply of this expensive honey for years to come.

33rd master gardeners show is May 2 at the fairgrounds. The subject will be brought up at the next meeting.

The Earth Day celebration at the Fairgrounds is April 11 2020.

SOBA bee class will be held at Ashland on April 18^th, costs $45. The class is pretty much a full day affair and could benefit beginners and seasoned bee keepers.

Old Business

There was a short discussion about ordering a pallet of that is Drivert Sugar. Vote was again tabled until next meeting due to the relative small numbers of attendees. Two members volunteered to go get the sugar if a pick-up was available. David volunteered his pickup but would need some help taking out the 5^th wheel ball.

Pending a report from Jack, renting a club storage unit was tabled until next meeting

There is still a need for an event organizer. No volunteers stepped forward to fill this very important position.

Roundtable discussion

David explained using candy canes for winter feeding, how many and were to put them.

The early indication that this year’s weather could be as crazy as last years is so bee survival could be an issue again this year.

Internet videos are a good source of information for beginners if you keep in mind that the methods could differ depending on the location and not all bee keepers send out quality information. Bee keeping for dummies was suggested to give beginners a start and an idea of what questions to ask.

Moisture control using square hive top feeders was brought up. The benefits are the hive moisture is held in the sugar which feeds and dries the hive at the same time.

Possums and skunks will rob the hive so hive should be elevated about 18 inches.

Meeting adjourned at 8:05 PM

Filed under: Douglas County Bees