The first quarter of 2015 was a fun and exciting time for the
Madison/Hanover chapter of Southeastern Indiana Beekeepers Association.
After taking a weather break in January, the February and March
meetings allowed club members to learn ways to increase their apiary
size without buying bees. First, Jim Orem shared his very successful
ideas and tips on setting up traps and catching feral swarms. The next
month, Dave Shenefield showed the group how to take the bees that
survived the winter and make splits and nucs.
Additionally, when March rolled around, IBA treasurer Debbie Seib
arrived to award the club with our ‘seed’ money. This funding is
provided to start up clubs which have maintained 25 attendees
consecutively at 3 meetings. This is as a way to help the club with
such things as signs, printing, guest presentations, or whatever.
Finally, at the end of March, Ginger Davidson provided a talk about
bees at th Clarksville Library to a small yet interested crowd. This
was followed by a Beekeeping 101 class sponsored by the club and taught
to a sold out classroom by Ginger. The class was held at the Little
Golden Fox in Madison Indiana which provided a unique and different
atmosphere in the classroom typically used for teaching milk painting
and other crafting projects. Next to local clubs, there isn’t a better
way to find mentors and stay in touch with beekeeping than through the
state organizations. Therefore, the exciting aspect about this class
was that some funds from this class were used to register attendees as
members of the Indiana Beekeepers Association.
Remember . . .Kathleen Prough, Indiana State Apiarist, will be at the April 9, 2015 meeting. We meet every 2nd Thursday of the month at Hanover College in the Campus Center Board Room at 6:30PM. www.IndianaHoney.org
