Leatherstocking Beekeepers’ will be gathering this weekend for delicious food, honey tasting and mixing with your fellow beekeepers.
The picnic will be held from 2 to 6 p.m. at the Lake Pavilion in Gilbert Lake State Park, Laurens.
We’ll Bee seeing you there!
The heat wave has broken, rain has returned, and fall is approaching. For us that brings anticipation of cozy sweaters and autumn colors though we know that’s really several weeks away.
If your bees have had a good year we can expect a honey harvest.
The bees, for their part are already thinking about winter. The bees being raised now will be the bees you go into winter with and so this is a crucial time of year. The best way to help the bees is to manage the mite population and make sure they have a good population with lots of resources going into winter. The best way to do that is to have an up-to-date mite count so you can know what you need to do next.
The next meeting will be all about these season closing activities.
To start the meeting we will be having refreshments courtesy of our Secretary, Emma Wallace. Providing the honey tasting this month will be member Michael Murphy whose ‘water white’ honey took the blue ribbon at the Delaware County Fair.
We will be adding a new question to the introductions regarding mite counts so Bee prepared.
The educational section of the evening will be kicked off by Richard Lercari presenting on how to extract honey at the end of the season. He will be followed by Steven Davis presenting on winter preparations and what you can do now and in the coming weeks to get your ladies through the winter.
The eductational presentations will be followed by the business meeting.
The monthly meeting of the Leatherstocking Beekeepers’ Association will be held at 7 p.m., snacks begin at 6:30 p.m., at the Fenimore Farm and Country Village, 5775 State highway 80, Cooperstown.
We’ll Bee seeing you there.
LBA members Richard Lercari and Mike Hoyt attended the amazing class on observation hives this past Saturday, July 19, at Betterbee in Greenwich, NY.
The class was led by the incredible Dr. David T. Peck, Director of Research and Education, formerly of Cornell University, with expertise in Neurobiology and Behavior; and by Anne Frye, Betterbee’s Head Beekeeper, teacher, and videographer, who became an EAS certified Master Beekeeper in 2002. Together they shared their wealth of insight and experience, making for an enriching experience for all.
With these teachers on hand, workshop participants had an enchanting day gaining insights into the fascinating life of bees and how observation hives work. Thanks to Betterbee’s wonderful educational staff they learned how to use the live observation hives as both a teaching tool and a unique way to keep bees at home, whether short-term or long-term.
Hands-on experiences, valuable discussion, and even a trip to the teaching apiary made this class a must for anyone interested in beekeeping! If you’re curious about the incredible world of bees and want to know how to incorporate observation hives into your life, this course is for you.
You can hear more about the class on Observation Hives this Thursday, July 25, 2025 at the monthly meeting of the Leatherstocking Beekeepers’ Association held at 6:30 p.m. in the classroom at the Fenimore Farm and Country Village, 5775 State Highway 80, Cooperstown.
We will have snacks, a honey tasting, and Lindsey Moroch of Kutik’s Everything Bees discussing commercial beekeeping.
