We briefly went over top bar hives and langstroth hives and discussed different feeders. We also had our usual question and answer session and had a lot of participation from those attending.

We also had a vice president and a treasurer appointed at the meeting. Dan Maxwell agreed to take over the roll of Vice president and Ken Woogerd accepted the position of Treasurer. They are very excited about being involved in our ever growing club and I feel they will both be great assets to our group. Thanks Dan and Ken!

UPDATE! We have a secretary as well!!!!!      Christine Crowell has graciously accepted the post of secretary!  This completes the officers for the club and our by-laws will soon be finalized.

I have discovered that we still have some package bees available for purchase, so if you did not manage to get your order in contact me ASAP. The availability is limited, so it will be first come, first served. The packages will be $75 for a 3 pound package and $87 for a 4pound package. I will be going to California to pick up the packages myself. At this point we are scheduled to return late evening on April 4th, so packages will be available for pick up the morning of April 5th.

Next month our speaker will be Vince Carlson from Adytum Cellers in Woodinville. He will discuss mead-making. Mead is wine made from honey and Vince will have some sample for tasting. I will be envying all of you as I drive to California to get bees!

One thing I briefly touch on at the meeting was nosema monitoring. I have the equipment available to evaluate the nosema loads of you hives and will be bring it to future meetings. I have also purchased sample cups and have them available for the asking. Give me a call and I will give you a cup and instructions for obtaining a sample. WSU has also requested that smaller beekeepers in the state send in samples of hives that are failing. They have been getting lots of data from commercial beekeepers, but the data is lacking for the beekeepers who only have one or 2 hives and WSUis eager to add this information to their research. The sampling instructions I mentioned earlier has the address where you can send the samples for a more in depth analysis.

Thanks to all who attended the March meeting. We look forward to seeing you in April!

We also discussed winter feeding of fondant and about the availability of quality package bees and our options. The Puget Sound Beekeepers Association has agreed to let us piggyback our order onto theirs. We may order up to 10 packages total for their first delivery date. They will have another delivery shortly after the first and we may add to that one also.

Next month we will be focusing on hives. There will be a langstroth ( the kind you see most often) a Warre hive and 2 different types of observation hives to take apart and see how they work.  We will also go over how to light a smoker and how to install a package of bees. Our main speaker will be Jerry Robnett the area 1A representative from the Washington State Beekeepers Association

The next meeting will be on March 4th at 7:00pm at the Freeland Library.