The Dog Days of Summer are here and the bees love them. This is the season of honey production, sometimes splitting the hives, and sweaty beekeepers. This is when some of the bees most important work is done from filling the hive with resources to us beekeepers keeping the mite numbers in check ahead of autumn and the dark days of winter.

But that’s way in the future.

This month the Leatherstocking Beekeepers’ are meeting up to discuss, review monthly activities and learn about the industry and craft of beekeeping. We will be welcoming Lindsey Moroch of Kutick’s Everything Bees located in Oxford, NY, to present about commercial beekeeping in the year of 2025. Some of us know her from picking up nucleus colonies, her beginners classes, and from picking up equipment from her beekeeping store.

This month, we will be changing the schedule of events. Lindsey will be speaking at 7 p.m., doors will open at 6:30 p.m. for social time and to taste the honey from the forests of Germany provided by your Vice President, Stephanie Wardwell.

After the educational portion we will hold the business meeting and a Q&A where we will be passing around sign ups for the Open Apiary.

Mike Hoyt will be opening his apiary for visitors to observe and assist with an inspection. This is a good opportunity for beginning and prospective beekeepers to get a look inside the hive and what an inspection involves. The event is free but registration is required. A limited number of veils will be available.

Register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/open-apiary-day-tickets-1466539652579?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

We’ll Bee seeing you there!

The next meeting of the Leatherstocking Beekeepers’ Association will be held Thursday, July 24 at 6:30 p.m. in the classroom of the main building at the Fenimore Farm and Country Village (formerly the Farmers’ Museum) at 5775 State Highway 80, Cooperstown.

May flowers are up, trees are green, and the hills are alive with the sound of bees hard at work. If we’re lucky.

The work of keeping bees is part anxiously watching the activity of nature around us for what our bees are experiencing, the blooms, the cold snaps; and part watching the horizon for what challenges await.

One perennial challenge that has dogged the inspections of beekeepers around the world has been the Varroa Mite. This ever present parasite, since the 80s in the US, has caused the decimation of many a colony and it’s not likely to stop soon.

The May meeting will be about managing pests like this. We will have a presentation by our own Richard Burroughs on this particular pest as well as treatment options, focusing on the newly approved treatment VarroxSan. The spring is a particularly important time to begin the management to keep the numbers of this unwanted insect low and we aim to assist our fellow beekeepers in this endeavor.

Following will be a workshop presided over by our own Stephanie Wardwell. As the season progresses, we all often find ourselves looking at our hives and asking ourselves ‘How did we get here?’ Keeping a record of observations and actions we took in our hives can help to answer some of our questions when that time rolls around. Together we will work together to make a custom worksheet to help us record what we see in the hive.

The educational program will be followed by our business meeting and then we will have light refreshments courtesy of Mike Hoyt.

Mike recently traveled to Colorado where he stayed at a hotel that hosted 7 beehives on its roof and sold the honey. Attendees to the meeting will have the chance to have a taste.

The Leatherstocking Beekeepers’ Assocation meets this month at 7 p.m. on May 22, at the Fenimore Farm and Country Village, 5775 State Highway 80, Cooperstown.