"When you go in search of Honey, you must expect to be

stung by bees."

- Dr. Kenneth Kaunda

President’s Buzz … Hello Everyone

It certainly has been an eventful month or so with the honey bees

being back in the spotlight over mosquito sprays in neighboring

South Carolina, along with other activities. I was so pleased we

were able to have someone come from Mecklenburg County vis-

it and give us some good information about their plans to not spray

in North Carolina. That same evening our forum on Oxalic Acid had

great information on its use for combating the Varroa Mite. Thanks

to those beekeepers that participated. It is always helpful to learn

how everyone goes about their beekeeping.

I don’t know about the rest of you all but the bee traffic has been

crazy busy the past few days. Matthew seemed to have thrown

everyone for a loop and my girls are happy to finally see the bluer

skies. We did end up with an enormous oak down in our yard from

the rain and winds. Fortunately, it fell away from the house and the

hives and only took out the power for a few hours. I hated to see

her fall and hope the young tulip poplar nearby will rapidly take her

place. Otherwise, I am grateful we came out of the storms relatively

unscathed. I hope you did as well.

As you will have seen from our most recent Bee Blast, we are shak-

ing things up a bit this year with hosting the Honey Tasting and

Competition in October. This is always one of my favorite meetings

as I enjoy seeing all of the different shades and tastes of honey that

everyone brings. It is amazing to me how close our hives can be

and how different our honey can taste. Please don't be shy about

entering the tasting, and if you were not able to get a jar at our last

meeting, there will be a "pouring station" available for folks to trans-

fer their honey into one of the jars we will use that night. Just be

sure that you bring at least one half pound's worth so that you can

fill the tasting jar to the correct line. If you do not have or want to

enter your honey, please come anyway and be a judge. (George

explains more further in the newsletter.)

See you all on the 20th!

— Kris Daniels

THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF THE MECKLENBURG COUNTY BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION October, 2016

the honeycomb

October’s Meeting October 20th, 7PM Mouzon United Methodist Church 3100 Selwyn Avenue Charlotte, NC

“Annual Honey Tasting Contest” Hosted by George McAllister. Thank you to George McAllister for provid-ing refreshments as well! Alan Garcia will be providing Cleanup and Teardown after the meeting. Please feel free to thank him for volunteering free and to lend a helping hand.

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Honey Tasting Contest by George McAllister

Who has the best tasting Mecklenburg County honey in the club? Maybe it’s your honey! To find out, don’t miss your oppor-tunity to enter the club’s honey tasting con-test during October’s meeting. Don't have honey to enter? Then come to taste the surprisingly wide varieties of hon-ey that are produced in our county, and be one of our judges. At the beginning of our October meeting you will have the opportunity to pour your honey into an official entry jar (1/2 pound glass queenline jar) if you did not pick up a jar during the September club meeting. (Note: you should provide enough honey to completely fill the jar.) You can enter one jar per family from this year’s honey crop. Each jar will be as-signed a random number so no one will know whose honey they are judging. Eve-ryone will get a chance to be a judge. At the end of the meeting the names of the winners will be revealed and ribbons given out for the best tasting honey. You MUST ATTEND the October meeting to enter the contest. Join us: Thursday, 7 p.m., October 20th, 2016 Mouzon United Methodist Church, 3100 Selwyn Avenue, Charlotte, NC

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Editor Wanted

Our dynamic, volunteer organization needs someone to edit or co-edit our honeycomb

newsletter. My term ends with the DEC 2016 publication and I need to be able to hand this off and help the new person or people get started. It would great for them to have a few is-sues in advance to ease the transition. This is a very rewarding and fun project to do with a friend or in a group. Please contact me if you are interested at: ed@2219meck.com

Feral Bees & Chronic Lyme Disease

by Andrew Thiessen

Are Feral Bees Different and/or Better?

Short Answer: YES!

Explanation: Like everyone else, I want the Holy Grail bees that make tons of honey, never sting me (I’m a huge sissy when it comes to getting stung!) and survive without any pharmaceutical input. I’m committed to this task and I’m working diligently to get there.

First I need to start with getting bees that live without medical help because I can’t improve dead bees! So, how does one go about getting these so-called “Survivor” bees? I started by looking at bees that are already living without human input: Feral Bees; and asking the question, “How do they do it?”

Guess what? They do it by losing a good bit of their Italian genetics. (This according to a study of U.S. feral bee genetics cited in the arti-cle: What’s Happening to Our Bees?—Part 5 on scientificbeekeep-ing.org) That’s right. In this genetic study of 203 feral colonies and 77 managed colonies, they found that feral bees have only 4% Yel-low Italian genes compared to 42% Yellow Italian gene content of domesticated bees in the U.S. It seems feral bees have replaced these Italian genes with 7% “German” or “Dark Bee” genes and 10% Middle Eastern Apis melifera syriaca genes. The latter gene is found only in feral populations and not in managed bees at all! Now we’re getting somewhere!!!

Of all the colony removals I did this year, I have four thriving colonies which were confirmed swarms which issued from tree cavities. These are the ones that interest me. We know—for a fact—that these bees have done well without anyone man-aging them. I’m very eager to rear queens from these and study their performance over the next several years.

Bee Venom & Chronic Lyme Disease: NC’s “Silent Epidemic”

Before I even begin down this road, let me stress that I know nearly nothing about Lyme Disease. But I am starting to study it and I want to learn more about it for a few different reasons.

I’ve very recently become aware that Lyme Disease is more prevalent in NC than many of us would ever realize. There are two strains of Lyme Disease: Late Lyme Disease and Chronic Lyme Disease. Late LD can be treated with pharmaceutical drugs. As I understand it (and again, I have zero healthcare training), modern drugs do nothing for Chronic Lyme Disease. It’s a relative disease of Syphilis. Once contracted, you have it for life and it eventually kills you. Period. And the drawn out death ain’t pretty.

Ok, now that I’ve brought the party down, I have to tell you that we beekeepers hold the key! Bee venom therapy is the only known treatment for the effects of Chronic Lyme Disease. And it doesn’t take that much. How do I know & why am I talking about this? Two people with Chronic Lyme Disease have recently contacted me to obtain bees for their ongoing Ap-itherapy.

(Article continued on the next page.)

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(Cont. from Previous Page)

Feral Bees & Chronic Lyme Disease

by Andrew Thiessen

They tell me there is a whole support network in NC for Lyme Disease patients (www.carolinalyme.org). All of these folks currently mail-order their bees from GA & SC. The two folks whom I now supply with bees (100 bees per month for each of them) say they called every beekeeper they could find in and around Charlotte to get bees for their treatment…and were turned down. (NOTE: I don’t know who all they called.) But, I’m all too happy to provide them and whoever else may call with as many bees as they need. I’D URGE YOU TO CONSIDER DOING THE SAME. Nothing else works for these folks—we’re it.

The first man who called me said he’d been in the hospital for over a year. Despite everything Western Medicine has to offer, his health had declined through the stages of three months to live, one month, two weeks to live and finally praying for him to make it through the night.

Citing liability, his doctors did not approve Apitherapy—gotta love law-yers and our government. So, his wife smuggled mail-order bees into the hospital and administered many daily bee stings at the base of his spine. Within two weeks his health showed significant improvement. He’s now 8 months into apitherapy. He’s out of the hospital, walking and even driving!

I’d like to pitch the idea that MeckBees should sponsor the Carolina Lyme Foundation by our Club members stepping up and agreeing to provide bees as needed. This can be an informal agreement—I understand we have insurance and lawyers who may cringe at any formal contract. Each patient needs ~100 bees per month. That’s about 1/3 of a cup of bees. Given a queen bee may lay 1,500 bees per day and there are 1440 minutes in a day, that’s about 1 hour & 40 minutes worth of egg laying per month. Not much for a hive to give up.

I’ve made a commitment to maintain two hives in Charlotte solely to provide bees for these folks. I’ve showed them how to col-lect their own bees, and given them carte blanche access to get their bees whenever they need them if I’m not in town to help them. I’m not worried about liability of their getting stung, as that’s their whole objective!

I’d like to ask others to considering doing the same. We’re all they’ve got.

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Gil’s Honeybee Crossword Puzzle

Across

4. Important to the environment and the survival of the human race.

5. October meeting subject.

8. The FDA considers a beekeeper with less than 25 hives this.

9. This honeybee byproduct is being studied with Chronic Lyme Disease.

10. Host of the Honey Tasting Contest.

Down

1. Type of mite suspected to play an important role in the collapse of a honeybee colony.

2. Veterinarians consider the misuse and overuse of this as a real problem in the resistance they are seeing.

3. This type of honeybee survives in the wild.

6. In 2017 beekeepers will no longer be allowed to purchase this over the counter.

7. Chronic disease that is incurable and is prevalent in N.C.

Send answers to ed@2219meck.com (subject

line puzzle) by Wednesday, October 14th. You

must be present at the meeting to win.

the honeycomb October 2016

Federal Directive will require Beekeeper

to get Veterinary Rx

8

Come Jan. 1, 2017, hobbyist and commercial beekeepers alike will no longer be able to purchase antimicrobials over the counter, but instead, will need a veterinary feed directive or prescription for the drugs they administer to their honeybees. The federal mandate requiring veterinary oversight of medically important antimicrobials in food-producing animals, including honeybees, is part of a Food and Drug Administration strategy to reform the way these drugs are legally used in food animals. For millennia, humans have relied on Apis mellifera for food, to create candles and cosmetics, and, most importantly, to pollinate crops, earning them the name “the angels of agriculture.” Veterinary medicine in the United States has, however, traditionally paid little attention to honey-bees, the only insect listed as a food-producing animal.

Dr. Christopher Cripps is a rarity as one of a handful of U.S. veterinarians knowledgeable about honeybee health and apiculture. Co-owner of honeybee supply business in Greenwich, New York, Dr. Cripps considers the FDA action an opportunity for veterinarians to access a relatively untouched animal industry valued by the Depart-ment of Agriculture at just over $327 million in 2015. “The FDA has said veterinarians and beekeepers have to get together,” he said. “It’s new to us, and it’s new to beekeepers, who are used to having no one looking over their shoulder.” This past August, Dr. Cripps spoke at AVMA Convention 2016 about honeybee diseases, approved medications in apiculture, and what the new Veterinary Feed Directive means for veterinarians. Additionally, Dr. Cripps is part of a working group formed by the AVMA Food Safety Advisory Committee to help veterinarians un-derstand the legal requirements of writing a VFD or prescription for honeybees. “As a strong proponent of re-sponsible antibiotic use, the AVMA has been involved in the changing regulations from the very start,” said Dr. Christine Hoang, an assistant director of the AVMA Animal and Public Health Division and staff adviser for the food safety committee. “We’ve also recognized that minor species, including honeybees, have unique circum-stances and needs that must be addressed. It will be a steep learning curve, but we are currently developing edu-cational materials for our member veterinarians and are dedicated to collaborative solutions for the beekeeping industry,” Dr. Hoang said

The National Honey Board puts the number of U.S. beekeepers at around 125,000, most of them hobbyists with fewer than 25 hives. Last year, domestic honey production totaled 157 million pounds, according to the USDA, which says managed honeybee colonies contribute roughly $15 billion to the value of U.S. agriculture each year through increased yields and superior harvests. Some 18 diseases attributable to bacteria, viruses, and parasites have been identified in honeybees. Arguably the greatest disease threat is the Varroa destructor mite, which drains the blood of adult bees and is a vector for various viruses that easily kill off weakened insects. Varroa mites are suspected to play an important role in colony collapse disorder, a mysterious occurrence in which most of the worker bees abandon a colony, leaving few nurse bees to care for the remaining immature bees and queen. American foulbrood disease is the most serious of the honeybee bacterial pathologies. The disease is caused by the spore-forming Paenibacillus larvae, which infects one- to two-day-old bee larvae and kills them during the pupal stage. Beekeepers have three FDA-approved antimicrobials to control foulbrood outbreaks—oxytetracycline, tylosin, and lincomycin—which are typically mixed with sugar and dusted over the frames inside a bee hive. In his presentation at the AVMA convention, Dr. Cripps cited a 2015 survey by the Bee Informed Part-nership in which 357 of approximately 5,000 beekeepers admitted using antimicrobials in their bee colonies. Commercial beekeepers, who, on average, own approximately 900 hives, are the primary users of antimicrobials, he added.

(Article continued on the next page.)

by R. Scott Nolen

Reprinted by The Journal of American Veterinary Medicine

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Within the beekeeping community, there is little understanding of bacteriology or how antimicrobial resistance is spread, Dr. Cripps observed. “Basically, the beekeepers know that if oxytetracycline doesn’t work, I should use tylosin,” he explained. Dr. Cripps described beekeepers as a lot like food animal producers, saying they are frugal yet willing to pay for services that promote the health of their colonies and result in increased honey production. “They’re OK with spending money so long as they’re getting something for the money they spend,” he explained.

Veterinarians can demonstrate their value to beekeepers, Dr. Cripps said, by delivering the same services they provide to owners of avian and mammalian livestock, such as preventive care, disease diagnosis and treatment, parasite control, and education in good husbandry practices. “I think the FDA is not looking for us to exchange our signature for money, which is basically how the beekeep-ers feel the veterinarians are going to be,” he said. “The FDA wants us to know what’s going on. We have a great education that puts us in a great position to help beekeepers understand the diseases their bees get and how to control and prevent them.” Dr. Nicolas Vidal-Naquet, a lecturer of honey-bee biology and diseases at the Veterinary School of Alfort in France, views the new federal Veteri-nary Feed Directive as “a very positive decision.” In an email to JAVMA News, Dr. VidalNaquet wrote, “This will lead veterinarians to get involved in apiculture, and this will lead beekeepers and other apiculture professionals to apply good practices in using veterinary medicines.” Treating hon-eybees with antimicrobials is illegal in Europe, where miticides to control the Varroa mite are the only approved medications, according to Dr. Vidal-Naquet, author of “Honeybee Veterinary Medi-cine: Apis mellifera L.,” published in 2015. “I think that antibiotic resistance is a real problem in the U.S. because of a misuse and overuse of antibiotics,” he said, adding he advocates for good hus-bandry practices as the ideal way of preventing and controlling honeybee diseases.

Dr. Vidal-Naquet explained how European veterinarians, like their American counterparts, over-looked honeybees as a sector of animal agriculture until 2005, when the Nantes Atlantic College of Veterinary Medicine, Food Science, and Engineering in France established the first veterinary post-graduate degree in apiculture and honeybee diseases. At least 200 veterinarians have graduated from the Nantes program so far, Dr. Vidal-Naquet said, while veterinary schools in Germany, Spain, Italy, and Austria now devote some courses to honeybee health and husbandry. The catalyst for the novel veterinary degree was the desire of a small number of veterinarians who, Dr. Vidal-Naquet said, wanted their profession to do more to safeguard an increasingly threatened animal species whose importance to humans and the environment cannot be overstated. Within a decade, that message had caught on, with the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) devoting an entire is-sue of its 2014 “bulletin” to honeybees. Dr. Bernard Vallat, OIE director general at the time, called the potential loss of honeybees a “biological, agricultural, environmental, and economic disaster. Maintaining healthy populations of these key pollinating insects … is a critical health challenge de-serving the full attention of the global community.”

Federal Directive will require Beekeeper

to get Veterinary Rx

(Cont. from Previous Page)

Honey-Roasted Carrots

Reprinted from myrecipes.com (Southern Living Magazine)

Ingredients

2 pounds baby carrots with tops

2 teaspoons olive oil

3 tablespoons butter, divided

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 shallot, finely chopped

2 tablespoons bourbon

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon chicken broth or water

1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

Preparation

1. Place a small roasting pan in oven. Preheat oven and pan to 500°.

2. Cut tops from carrots, leaving 1 inch of greenery on each carrot.

3. Stir together olive oil and 1 Tbsp. butter in preheated pan. Add carrots, salt, and pep-per; toss to coat. Bake 10 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, melt remaining 2 Tbsp. butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add shallot; sauté 1 minute. Remove from heat, and stir in bourbon and next 2 ingredi-ents. Return to heat, and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to medium, and cook 5 minutes or until mixture is syrupy.

5. Drizzle syrup over carrots; toss to coat. Bake 5 to 7 more minutes or until carrots are crisp-tender. Transfer to a serving dish, and sprinkle with thyme.

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Cooking with Honey

8

Contact Us

Email us with questions at meckbeespres@gmail.com. Pictures & Article Submissions are always needed and are greatly appreciated.

Email any submissions to:

ed@2219meck.com

Subject: Honeycomb

2016 MCBA OFFICERS

President: Kris Daniels (meckbeespres@gmail.com)

Vice President: Ed Moyers (meckbeevp@gmail.com)

Treasurer: Diana Smith

Membership Secretary: Melinda Mitchell

(tmitchell002@carolina.rr.com)

Chaplain: Don Rierson

Webmaster: Kevin Freeman (meckbees@gmail.com)

MCBA Newsletter

2219 Mecklenburg Avenue

Charlotte, NC 28205

PLACE STAMP HERE

THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF THE MECKLENBURG COUNTY BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION October, 2016