September 8, 2015
Minutes for Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Meeting held in Kinsmen Pavilion at Richmond Nature Park, 7:30 PM
There were 73 people in attendance.
Meeting called to order at 7:38 pm.
- Welcome : Opening Remarks and Introduction by Amanda Goodman Lee
- A reminder about wasps and to watch your hives, it is robbing season.
- #7 “Newbees” were introduced
- Motion
- to approve minutes of the May meeting
- motion made by Steve Bailey, seconded by Jeff Lee
- Carried
- Treasurer’s Report by Miriam Soet
- Funds in account at the end of month…$7679.01
- We just had a GIC roll over, so we will be investing in a new one which will remove $2000 from our cheque account.
- We also have some large bills to pay, including; Insurance, Domain and a donation to the sharing farm. Once these clear our cheque account will be sitting at approx. $6500.00
- Miriam makes a motion to move the report
- Julia Common seconds report
- Carried
- Side notes from Miriam Soet
- New members can pay their membership dues now and 2016 dues will be included.
- BCHPA Update from Jeff Lee
- AGM will be held in Courtney/Comox this October, there will be an amazing list of speakers and 2 education days. A full list of details can be found on the BCHPA website.
- 2015 Spring/Summer Swarm Update from Eric Crosby
- We received 8-10 swarm calls this season, with the majority of them being in Richmond, a few in Tsawwassen and one in North Vancouver. Due to the large number of people on the swarm list please don’t feel disappointed if you don’t get a call. Because we are the Richmond Bee Club, most of our calls come from our clubs closest cities.
- Field Day Review from Tim Monaghan and Amanda Goodman Lee
- This year’s Field day was a huge success, we had approximately 70 people show up to the Terra Nova Sharing Farm for an afternoon of food and great demonstrations
- We had demonstrations of hive inspections by Julia Common and Derrick from the Langley Bee Club, as well as a demonstration with our new extractor.
- We shared our field day with both the Langley and Surrey club, and as a result the Langley Club will host the 2016 field day.
- A huge thank you to both Tim Monaghan and Lesley Gunning for all the work they put in to make this such a great event.
- A review of the Membership Survey from Tim Monaghan
- 83 of 108 members filled in the survey (which is awesome!)
- There were 18 questions in total, with replies being very positive and with great constructive criticism of how we can improve the club. Overall it was an incredibly successful survey and we wish to thank everyone that participated. Full results can be seen on the RBA website.
- RBA 2015 Survey Results PPT
- Coffee Break & Raffle
- Presentation: Paul Van Westendorp
- Paul gave an amazing presentation about the latest find in the Fraser Valley-The Small hive Beetle (SHB).
- SHB have slowly made their way across North America over the past 18 years, and on August 24, 2015 a beetle was found in Abbotsford.
- Please see the below photo
Small Hive Beetle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_hive_beetle - BC Ministry of Agriculture- Apiculture- Factsheet on Small Hive Beetle
- The Ministry has requested that anyone that finds what they might think to be a SHB to please put samples in a closable container and send them to the below address
- Apiculture
BC Ministry Of Agriculture
1767 Angus Campbell Rd
Abbotsford, BC
V3G 2M3
- Apiculture
- Meeting ended late…9:25pm
- Next Meeting: Tuesday, October 13, 2015