Please note we are meeting on the 3rd Thursday of the month, 1:30 p.m. at the OSU Extension office, 1211 SE Bay Blvd, Newport, OR, unless there are exceptions such as our June meeting (in Waldport) are listed. Our next meeting will be April 17th.
See our newsletter for the updated calendar and schedule or our full list of presenters and topics for 2025.
The Pacific Northwest Honey Bee Survey is now being taken.
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- It extends mid-March through April.
- After you have had a chance to open your colonies and assess your winter success, please take the time to enter your data in the survey.
- It should take less than 5 minutes.
- This year you can fast track your responses and only provide information on overwintering successes/losses.
- Reports by clubs with 20+ member responses are posted beginning within a month following survey close April 30th
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Please take the time to enter your data. For more information and links click: PNW Honey Bee Survey
Our next meeting is a great opportunity to pay dues and to place your orders for bee packages and nucs through the club’s bulk order (see newsletter for details) – please recall that April 27th is the hard deadline to place and pay for orders (payment can be made at a meeting or by check to our post office box – see address on the last page of the newsletter)
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
By Jeremy Egolf
We live in interesting times. Preparing for this newsletter, I checked my email account for the latest issue of the USDA Agricultural Research Service’s Weekly Digest Bulletin and found that I hadn’t received it since February 9th. Turning to the Service’s website, it appeared not to have been updated since January – it still features the January “Photograph of the Month.” To find out what was happening with the ARS, I turned to our friend Dewey Caron, who provided this information a few days ago:
“The websites of federal bee scientists have been taken off-line. Sites that include new items from agencies, such as USDA, NASS (survey data that includes honey prices, pollination rental income, etc.) and the regular USDA, ARS research newsletter (that includes occasional stories about new findings in bee research) have also gone dark. The programs are being reevaluated according to the sources I have consulted. They indicate they are having to respond to urgent lab reviews as they are gearing up for spring research and completing their publications over the winter period when they are not in the field actually collecting data. We know two recent hires (within last three years) were fired but at least one, Dr. Liz Walsh of the USDA Baton Rouge Bee Lab has been rehired.
“Commercial beekeepers have requested an audience with the new Secretary of USDA Brooke Rollins, to discuss the heavy losses of colonies suffered the past two seasons but they have not heard yet if it will be granted. Some USDA research grants have been paused for a 90 day period for a review period. So far, none involving bees seem to have been cancelled. But all say there is great uncertainty and nervousness. The USDA Beltsville was able to send Dr. Zac Lamas to California to sample brood, adults, bee bread and beeswax from dead and dying colonies and from some colonies not recovering from wintering. They plan to prioritize analysis of the 500+ samples. What is not clear is what analysis technique will be employed to look for the possibility of new virus or variants of DWV virus – this is one of the hypothesized reasons for the sudden increases in bee colony losses. Improper fall nutrition leading to bee stress has also been postulated as another possible reason for heavier losses but analysis seems not to be a priority. It will take some time to complete analysis of samples and the sampling may be inconclusive and only correlative – actual experiments to prove cause and effect will take longer to be established and results evaluated.”
Probationary employees were fired at the Natural Resources Conservation Service but as of Monday, March 10, reportedly were not yet reinstated despite court orders to do so.
We note the Oregon legislature is considering an amendment to HB 2679 (currently in committee, restricting use of neonicotinoids). The amendment would stop sales at garden and home stores but not require persons applying the neonicotinoids to be licensed (and therefore trained) for proper application.
This month’s newsletter articles continue some ongoing themes, including science at university and USDA Agricultural Research Service Labs, beekeeping abroad, specifically in Kenya and Pakistan, and on the alarming reduction in pollinator populations, specifically butterflies.
Bee Orders: We remind you that we’ve arranged for Henry Storch to provide bees for paid members this spring. The deadline to place orders is the April 17th meeting. We’re tentatively targeting May 7 for packages and May 16 for nucs, depending on the usual vagaries of weather.
Prices are the same.
Packages – $155
Nucs – $180
$10 extra for marked queens
So, to order bees you can bring cash or a check to one of the next several meetings, or mail a check with your order information to the CCBA mailbox. Remember that you must be a 2025 paid member to order bees through CCBA. Last day to order bees will be our April meeting on the 17th.
Email Steve Niles at 2niles@gmail.com if you have any questions.
CCBA’s Queens for sale: This year we also have a limited number (5) queens available through the club for $40 each, first come first serve basis. The queens are from Heitkam’s Queens in Orland, California and were purchased through the OSBA auction last October. Not sure the race of the queens (Italian, Carniolan, etc) as they were donated and we didn’t have a choice. The queens are scheduled to be delivered the week of May 19.
2025 Membership: A reminder that membership fees are now due for 2025 – $15 for individual membership and $25 for a family. Dues can be paid in person at the next meeting, which will be March 20th, or they can be mailed to Central Coast Beekeepers, P.O.Box 1916, Newport, OR, 97365. If your personal information has changed, please fill out a membership application form so we will have current contact information. As a reminder, ordering bees at a discount through the be club is a perk of membership.
We look forward to seeing you at our next meeting of the year, Thursday, March 20.
You will never be solicited by the club or asked for payment (other than annual dues). Be aware of scam emails.
Honey Bee Videos from OSU
Carolyn Breece of OSU Oak Creek Apiary fame has put together a video channel with some great stuff on many aspects of the honey bee world. Check it out.
In the Bees with the OSU Honey Bee Lab