Solicitations
The Cowichan Beekeepers Society does not represent or endorse any persons, parties or organizations soliciting members' participation in their studies/programs/endeavours. Solicitations posted on this webpage should be weighed carefully by those considering participation. Be discriminating. Investigate; examine their website (if they have one), ask questions and understand what is being asked of you before you risk your bees and apiaries. Posts to this page are copied and pasted, word for word, from correspondence submitted to the society. Direct all inquiries to the sender.
Received May 22nd:
I am hoping that the following message is appropriate for your organization:
Hi beekeepers,
I am a West Van beekeeper who will soon be taking part in the University of Montana Master Beekeeping course. This is the final course of a three part series and it requires that I do a scientific study. I am interested in the use of Saskatraz queens as a method of varroa control.
My question is this: Would any of you be interested in participating in this study? If you have Saskatraz queens, that's great, but even if you don't, you could still be part of a control group. It would be best if you do not use chemicals to treat for varroa. The study would require that you monitor your varroa count for about four weeks, using non-chemical methods.
If you think you'd like to use your bees to advance science, please contact me at:
oolichan@shaw.ca or 778-928-5323.
Thanks in advance,
Mona Donovan
I am hoping that the following message is appropriate for your organization:
Hi beekeepers,
I am a West Van beekeeper who will soon be taking part in the University of Montana Master Beekeeping course. This is the final course of a three part series and it requires that I do a scientific study. I am interested in the use of Saskatraz queens as a method of varroa control.
My question is this: Would any of you be interested in participating in this study? If you have Saskatraz queens, that's great, but even if you don't, you could still be part of a control group. It would be best if you do not use chemicals to treat for varroa. The study would require that you monitor your varroa count for about four weeks, using non-chemical methods.
If you think you'd like to use your bees to advance science, please contact me at:
oolichan@shaw.ca or 778-928-5323.
Thanks in advance,
Mona Donovan
Received May 22nd;
Hello John
I hope you are doing well.
Following up on both the testing, the course and the talks from last year we are expanding our activities. We have two trials where will be gathering data including controls. We plan to evolve the bees, educate the beekeepers but especially to use the data to drive further coordinated activities.
A couple of the better known academics within the research community have been consulted on the project design including Leonard Foster . We do intend to go to publication assuming we get the sufficient numbers for “statistical significance”.
The three areas are :
1st the Queen Rearing course is coming up again last weekend of May and first weekend of June. Virtually everyone from last year is collaborating. We will introduce all of this years participants to lasts for networking and hopefully group participation in the various initiatives and those they come with themselves. We can make payment arrangements for anyone who needs to spread it out.
2nd Expanding the hygienic testing and including some additional data. We hope to test many more hives this year. But we also want to have these hives regularly tested for varroa as well as send samples off to the lab for analysis. We will track these through overwintering and next years performance. We will be working with at least one commercial operator so our controls are well covered.
3rd Repeating a previous paper – Punnet – Winston from 1989 to encourage and track as many beekeepers as we can get to do splits from their hives on a basis which will not impact their honey crop but provide them with surplus NUCS to overwinter and hopefully have some of these available as locally adapted stock for other beekeepers next spring.
Please note – while I think that it is common knowledge that we are making the strong VSH queens, there is absolutely no requirement or inference that people need to have our queens to participate. We already have lots to track for data purposes.
Lastly, with respect to the Queen Rearing course, if you know of someone who would tremendously benefit from this and pass on to their local community but absolutely does not have the means to attend we would ask you to put their names to us and why. We expect sponsorship / scholarship for one or two people from the Islands. I emphasize there must be financial need. Last year we had Max from Haiti as part of Hives for Haiti. He spent a week with us and several weeks on Salt Spring. He has taken that back to his country and very active in developing and teaching down there.
Thanks very much and Happy BeeKeeping!
Iain on behalf of Ethical Bees
Hello John
I hope you are doing well.
Following up on both the testing, the course and the talks from last year we are expanding our activities. We have two trials where will be gathering data including controls. We plan to evolve the bees, educate the beekeepers but especially to use the data to drive further coordinated activities.
A couple of the better known academics within the research community have been consulted on the project design including Leonard Foster . We do intend to go to publication assuming we get the sufficient numbers for “statistical significance”.
The three areas are :
1st the Queen Rearing course is coming up again last weekend of May and first weekend of June. Virtually everyone from last year is collaborating. We will introduce all of this years participants to lasts for networking and hopefully group participation in the various initiatives and those they come with themselves. We can make payment arrangements for anyone who needs to spread it out.
2nd Expanding the hygienic testing and including some additional data. We hope to test many more hives this year. But we also want to have these hives regularly tested for varroa as well as send samples off to the lab for analysis. We will track these through overwintering and next years performance. We will be working with at least one commercial operator so our controls are well covered.
3rd Repeating a previous paper – Punnet – Winston from 1989 to encourage and track as many beekeepers as we can get to do splits from their hives on a basis which will not impact their honey crop but provide them with surplus NUCS to overwinter and hopefully have some of these available as locally adapted stock for other beekeepers next spring.
Please note – while I think that it is common knowledge that we are making the strong VSH queens, there is absolutely no requirement or inference that people need to have our queens to participate. We already have lots to track for data purposes.
Lastly, with respect to the Queen Rearing course, if you know of someone who would tremendously benefit from this and pass on to their local community but absolutely does not have the means to attend we would ask you to put their names to us and why. We expect sponsorship / scholarship for one or two people from the Islands. I emphasize there must be financial need. Last year we had Max from Haiti as part of Hives for Haiti. He spent a week with us and several weeks on Salt Spring. He has taken that back to his country and very active in developing and teaching down there.
Thanks very much and Happy BeeKeeping!
Iain on behalf of Ethical Bees