Dear PCBA,

I hope this message finds you well and your hives thriving! As we continue our mission to support bees and beekeepers, I want to thank each of you for your dedication and passion. Together, we’re making a meaningful difference—one hive at a time.

Stay tuned for updates on upcoming events, workshops, and opportunities to grow our impact. As always, your ideas and contributions are invaluable, so don’t hesitate to reach out. It takes volunteers to keep our club moving, so please consider giving of your time and/or talents to promote our mission- whether it's helping with the newsletter, website, events, or kids, we would readily use your help!

Let’s keep buzzing with purpose!

Wishing you happy holidays and a happy, healthy, and productive new year!

Warm regards,

Lisa Maguire, Ed.D.

PCBA President

Members whose memberships expire have been contacted through the website to process your renewal. All memberships close on 12/31. Please note: You MUST be a member in good standing in January to be able to order bee packages when ordering opens. Please do not wait to process them together, as that will bump you to a later ordering window.

We are currently accepting registrations for 2025 Bee School! First Class is Thursday, January 9th.

A few notes for members:

• If you have attended Bee School and would like to audit one or more classes this year, you're more than welcome! You do need to sit near the back, and if possible, please consider helping on the class day(s) you attend!
• If you are a member and have never attended Bee School, please contact Lisa Maguire or Matthew Leighton to transfer your membership so we can apply your membership payment toward the school.
• If you know someone who would like to attend Bee School, please refer them to the website at plymouthcountybeekeepers.org to register.
• If you would like to help with Bee School, we are looking for members to assist with light refreshments (water, coffee, snacks) and with setup and breakdown at the start and end of the evening. Please reach out to Bee School Director Patrick Duffy at pduffy393@gmail.com
• If you are a mentor, please save the date for April 3, when we would like to introduce all PCBA mentors to the Bee School students during the class. You are also invited to any class you can make to represent and support the club with your expertise.

$7,000.00 worth of Scholarships were granted in 2024 to several deserving Plymouth County high school graduates. The awards are $500 each.

The program includes the Dave W. Hayden Memorial Scholarships, $1,000.00, awarded to a senior who is pursuing beekeeping, or agricultural pursuits post high-school. Dave was a longtime member, past president, and friend of many.

Your club partners with several local food banks to help improve food security in the county. In 2024 we contributed $2,750.00.

Nicole C.S. Bell, UMass Extension Educator III – Pollinators, shares some of her insights with PCBA on her passions in horticulture, and sustainable agriculture. Her public outreach promotes pollinator conservation while making the science accessible.

1. Our club members would like to hear more from you on how your experiences at Oregon State University that prepared you for your new role in Massachusetts, including your time in OSU’s Honeybee Lab. What accomplishment you are most proud of, so far?

My interest in pollinators was sparked by my work at Oregon State University’s (OSU) Honeybee Lab. I was in this role as a lab and field technician for about four years, and during my time there, I had the privilege of working with many commercial beekeepers throughout the state of Oregon. Our lab was focusing on three key issues at the time: the Varroa mite, nosema, and interactions between pesticides and honeybees. We managed our own colonies and tested out different management styles and treatments to see what works: the biggest takeaway, though, is that our knowledge is always changing. The most important thing when it comes to honeybee colony management is being open to learning new things all the time. After working here, I shifted my focus to wild and native pollinators. After studying mason bees and wildfire, I delved into the fascinating world of urban bees. Living in highly fragmented and sometimes degraded habitats, these pollinators find ways to survive and reproduce. Out of my time as a Master’s student, the accomplishment I am most proud of is my work with Master Gardener’s around the city of Portland, Oregon, to showcase their efforts in providing urban pollinator refuges. My specialty is examining how functional traits, such as diet breadth, sociality, and nesting habit might impact a pollinator’s ability to survive in different environments.

2. Some of your research and outreach focused on wild bees in urban gardens. PCBA members understand the crucial roles we can play to help support pollinators through plants and habitat. What are some of the key advise you might share?

Although urban areas present many challenges for pollinators, research indicates that urban spaces can also be incredibly important refuge sites. A refuge site must contain at least two things: flowering plant species (food) and nesting substrate (housing). There are many more specifics we want to consider when thinking about the specific ecology of different pollinator species, such as bloom time, floral morphology, native status, flower height, etc. If I were to give the one sentence version of how people can support life in a garden setting: plant a variety of native flowering plant species, plant a few of the same species in clumps, and try to have something in bloom from spring through fall. Following that, you’ll inevitability end up with a display of diversity in the garden space.

3. Lastly, in addition to the Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, specifically UMass Pollinators website Resources: Pollinators | Center for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment at UMass Amherst, we would be interested in any other resources members can leverage or how best to engage with your team’s work.

The website is a great starting point for new outreach materials, but note that our website is under a content freeze until the new year due to UMass switching platforms. I would encourage people to go on the website and check out our “Educational Briefs”, of which there are many more coming once the freeze is over. Hard copies of briefs are also brought to educational events, so keep an eye on our social media for upcoming events and educational opportunities. Follow us on Instagram at umass_pollinators to stay up to date! I look forward to collaborating with beekeepers and other people gardening for pollinators on outreach projects. Always feel free to email me if you have questions or if there’s an educational opportunity you’re looking for – happy to create new programs, or point you in the direction of an existing program!

I thought it might be interesting to briefly describe what I’ve been doing in my apiary even though it seems like the season has ended!

1. I put on mouse guards in late October just to make sure I didn’t get any pesky intruders. Mice are the worst!
2. I turned on my heated bird baths so birds and bees have access to water. You’d be surprised that when bees take elimination flights on warmer winter days, they also collect water if available.
3. I made up candyboards for all my hives and installed them in mid-November. It’s kind of a big production but I think it’s worth it. I set the candyboards directly on top of the frames and completely remove the inner cover since it’s not needed during winter. I know some beekeepers wait longer but I’ve found that candyboards don’t seem to draw bees up past their stored resources to the top as much as fondant does. This is not scientifically proven!!!
4. I made sure that each hive has 1” rigid insulation on top of the candyboards under the outer cover. This really helps with cold moisture from gathering and then raining down on the cluster.
5. I just finished treating mites with oxalic acid vaporization – last treatment of the year. This is usually 98% effective against any marauding mites chewing on the poor bees. Some beekeepers have been using the oxalic acid dribble method and that also is very effective.
6. Finally, I installed bee cozies on all the hives. Bee cozies provide an insulating layer that helps to reduce heat loss. The bees consume less feed during the winter. In addition, it provides protection from wind and extreme temperatures.
7. Installing the bee cozies also gave me a chance to peak into the hives to see if they were on the candy. I was surprised that bees in two of the hives were starting on the candyboards. I’ll be peaking into my hives every few weeks to make sure that they don’t run out. I have fondant handy to supplement as needed. The draught this summer definitely influenced food resources.

On a final note, I know some of you have lost your colonies these last few months, which is always so sad and disappointing. But lessons have been learned, such as:

1. Managing varroa is critical, which means developing a comprehensive Integrated Pest Management program. A January task for me is to review my written IPM plan and update it and order treatments.
2. Losing a queen and not knowing until too late. This often (and usually) results in a laying worker colony with the colony perishing because there are no new bees. Yes, this happened to me in late summer!
3. Learning to recognize brood diseases such as parasitic mite syndrome. I saw a lot of this during the season. Take the time this winter to familiarize yourself with brood diseases and what they look like.
4. New beekeepers learning how to recognize brood, capped honey, drone brood, pollen and bee bread and saw eggs and larvae while learning about the life cycle of bees.

Have a great holiday everyone. I can’t wait for next year!

Tom Seeley is our modern day Karl von Frisch the Austrian zoologist who discovered that bees do the waggle dance to show foragers how to get to great pollen and nectar sources. Tom Seeley has continued those amazing studies of bees and has also made many other discoveries. This book “provides a rare look at how a singularly passionate scientist and his colleagues deciphered the pipings, shakings and puzzling tremble dances of bees. This dance combined with the waggle dance is one of the primary ways bees communicate about resources. The tremble dance of the honeybee is used by a forager when it perceives a long delay in unloading its nectar or a shortage of receiver bees, indicating a need to switch worker allocation from foragers to receivers.” This book is a great read that will help further your understanding of how bees communicate.

I served this Honey Pumpkin quick bread with honey butter at the November meeting in Hanover.

I made honey butter but honey cream cheese would also be good.

Next time I'll add chopped walnuts and slightly increase the amount of each spice.

Ingredients:

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter melted
  
• 1 cup canned pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup honey
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Nuts or dried fruit can also be added

Method:

• Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a 9x5 loaf pan with cooking spray
• in a medium bowl whisk the dry ingredients together and set aside. (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves)
• In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, then whisk in the honey, milk and vanilla, then whisk in the pumpkin then whisk while slowly adding the melted butter until everything is totally combined.
  
• Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Mix with a rubber spatula until just combined. Do Not OVERMIX. Lumpy is okay.
  
• Pour batter into prepared pan and spread evenly
  
• Bake for 50 minutes (+/- 3 minutes) or until a toothpick comes out clean.
  
• Optional:
• while the bread is baking, melt 1T butter and mix with 1T honey. Have a small basting brush available
• As soon as the bread is done, quickly brush the top with the honey butter
• Let the loaf cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Remove from the pan and cool completely.
  
• Store airtight.
  

Enjoy!

----------------------

Honey Butter:

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter at room temperature
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Optional: 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Method:

• In a medium bowl whip the butter with an electric hand mixer for 3 minutes until it is fluffy
• Add honey, vanilla extract and cinnamon if using and beat for a minute or until it is incorporated
• Maybe stored covered at room temperature for three days or refrigerated. May also be frozen. Bring to room temperature before serving.
  

Spread on Honey Pumpkin bread! Yum.

The Plymouth County Beekeepers Association (the “PCBA”), is a non-profit organization established in 1977. We are dedicated to the support of local agriculture and to educating the public about beekeeping through our school and participation in local fairs and festivals.

PCBA focuses on education, agriculture, and stewardship through many of the public outreach programs the club participates in and provides throughout the year. We have members who speak at schools, community centers, and professional meetings.

Website: plymouthcountybeekeepers.org
Location: 228 High Street, Hanson, MA, USA