BSA recently announced its response to Christopher’s request, and the news is mostly good. While BSA is not agreeing to reinstate the Beekeeping Merit Badge, it is agreeing to incorporate beekeeping activities into several different existing merit badges.
Emphasis of the importance of bees and beekeeping will be added to or enhanced in eight existing merit badge pamphlets: Bird Study, Forestry, Gardening, Nature, Plant Science, Pulp and Paper, Environmental Science, and Insect Study. All of this will be accomplished by the end of 2015. One of those badges, Environmental Science, is needed for a scout to attain Eagle rank. Although the BSA is not reinstating a merit badge specific to beekeeping, it is making changes that provide opportunities to expose over 100,000 boys a year to the joys of beekeeping.

Beekeeping projects, such as working with a colony or harvesting honey, will be considered for addition to one or more of those merit badges so that interested scouts can earn advancement recognition for their beekeeping activities. The BSA believes this will increase the awareness of honeybees and their critical impact on our environment, and training America’s young people about caring for this important natural resource.

HOWEVER WE AS BEEKEEPERS NEED TO SUPPORT THIS EFFORT!

BSA does not currently know how many people will be willing to act as mentors for scouts who want to learn more about beekeeping. BSA may be reluctant to include a great deal of beekeeping activities as options for earning the merit badges unless the beekeeping community demonstrates that it will provide mentors to boys who want to learn about beekeeping.

RIGHT NOW, there are three things that you can do to help.

First, BSA has invited all associations and experts in the beekeeping community who are interested in helping with this project to e-mail us at merit.badge@scouting.org. Please put “bees” in the subject line.

Second, if you are interested in serving as a merit badge counselor, contact your BSA local council to initiate the process.

Finally, if you are willing to be a mentor, please contact BSA directly and let them know you are willing to be a mentor. BSA has requested that interested beekeepers e-mail them at: merit.badge@scouting.org and please put “Honey Bees” in the heading. Just write a few words letting them know that you are willing to act as a mentor, and please give BSA a way to contact you and let them know what states and counties you are willing to mentor in.
Just write a few words letting them know you are willing to mentor. Give them a way to contact you and let them know the areas of your state/county wher you are willing to act as a mentor.

My son just bridged from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts this past February, and imagine my disappointment when I discovered the beekeeping merit badge had been discontinued. Along comes Christopher Stowell, a Boy Scout in Troop 250, Skiatook, OK who has taken on the mission to get the beekeeping merit badge reinstated. Here is a young man taking on the task of getting more youth involved in beekeeping, something that we as a beekeeping community should have been years ago. I’m sure this has been and will continue to be a positive life changing event for Christopher’s which is one of the great aspects of Scouting. It is so refreshing to see a young man take on what could be seen as a momentous task for more than just self-gratification. Especially in these times where society is all about entitlements.

It took a young man to start this ball rolling. Now it is our turn, as beekeepers, to help him make it happen. Everyone that is reading this can make a difference. I have been fortunate to connect up Neil Van Dalsem, a beekeeper and neighbor of Christopher Stowell, who has made available some petitions and letters that can be used to show our support. Christopher has set a goal of July 15, 2010 to approach the Council with his proposal, so we must work fast.

What we need to do!

Everyone needs to sign the Online Petition at a minimum, but please try to do more as suggested below.

General Public

If your not a beekeeper or a scout, but are a concerned citizen and want to help out, please print out the following petition, get as many friends and family to sign it and mail it to Christopher Stowell. Remember, his goal is July 15th, so please allow time for the postal system and for Christopher to manage the incoming mail.

General Petition (26.4 KB) (Downloads - 251)

Scouts

If you are a Scout, please print out the following petition and get as many of your fellow scouts that would be interested in earning the beekeeping merit badge to sign it. This is very important. The BSA wants to be assured that there is sufficient interest for the merit badge before they will reinstate it. Oh yea, if your up for it and want to really support your fellow scout, Chirstopher, print out the previous petition as well and get all your non-scout friends to sign that.

Scout Petition (26.84 KB) (Downloads - 244)

Beekeepers

If your a beekeeper, you are where the rubber needs to meet the road. One of the bigger concerns that the BSA has is merit badge councilors. It seems that one of the reasons the Beekeeping merit badge was discontinued was due to the lack of merit badge councilors. For the BSA to reinstate the beekeeping merit badge we need to demonstrate that we, the beekeeping community, will support it. I can’t think of a better way to get youth involved in beekeeping, then a nationally, well defined program. Let’s all take the effort to make this happen.

If you are aware of any beekeeping clubs in your area, print out the first file and approach the club to commit to supporting any scout in the area that would be interested in earning the Beekeeping merit badge. Next, print out the second file and get as many of your beekeeping friends to commit to be a Beekeeping merit badge council. Those two steps are the most important, but if your still up for more, contact your local BSA council to get the word out and get a scout interest petition going in your area.

Club Support (27.43 KB) (Downloads - 170)

Beekeeper Support (17.55 KB) (Downloads - 273)

Updates

Latest update – HERE

Christopher was our special guest on the May WpN Beekeeping Podcast. We had a great conversation with Christopher and got an update on how the campaign is going. I strongly recommend listening to the recorded podcast below. It is very reassuring to see such a determined young man of 13 and the dedication and effort he is putting forth. He has definitely grown and matured, and will continue to do so, through this effort and will make a great leader some day.
- Listen now

I have created a forum at Beemaster dedicated to this effort -> BSA Beekeeping Merit Badge Forum

Coverage of Christopher’s Effort

• Häagen-Dazs® – helpthehoneybees.com
• Online Petition – experienceproject.com
• Busy Bee – TulsaWorld.com
• Boy Scout Merit Badge Project – Beesource Forum

The cover has screened vent/feeder holes for each nuc away from the entrance to reduce the chances of robbing. A ratchet strap is used to hold the whole thing together when moving. A sheet of coroplast is placed over the cover for protection when out in the field.

The last photo shows a stack of 17 knocked down double nucs (34 nucs total) with an assembled deep in front for comparison. Each double nuc weighs 12.5 pounds without frames.

Monica Warner is the co-owner of The Carolina Bee Company. She and her husband, Todd have been keeping bees since May of 2004. They are a small beekeeping operation located in Franklin County, North Carolina (about 20 miles north of Raleigh).

This little enterprise was started with just two hives of honey bees. Over these handful of years, the Warner’s slowly expanded the number of hives as well as their experience.

Today, The Carolina Bee Company still remains a small company that produces high quality, chemicalfree, raw honey; and offers limited pollination services to the surrounding gardening and farming communities. Now, they have also expanded their small company to include the production of fabulous all natural, slow-cured, hand-crafted and handmade soaps, lip balms, and body butters.

All of their products are made from scratch with the very best all-natural ingredients to include, of course, the blessings of The Carolina Bee Company honey bees: honey and beeswax. Their products have been a resounding success.

Monica entered the soaps, lip balms and body butters into the 2008 and 2009 NC State Fairs, and won 1st and 2nd place ribbons for them respectively. Feedback on the products has been so positive, that they are expanding the product line further by selling in a couple local (Raleigh area) businesses, in addition to selling them on their website, www.carolinabees.com.

- Listen now

Recordings of other beekeeping podcasts can be found here.

Special Thanks to Jim Hensel for sharing this idea, photos, and directions.

Background: I am making my own hive boxes. I have researched handles and the choices are as follows:

1. Cleat
2. Dado slot
3. Canoe shaped routed pocket

But I wanted something more. I noticed that many “store bought” boxes have a routed pocket, but the bottom side is sloped.

I live where it rains a lot and this sloped bottom handle seemed to avoid water pooling at the bottom of the slot… I WANTED THIS STYLE HANDLE.

Here is my approximation.

1. This uses a router and a 14 degree dovetail bit. Buy the ¾” one if you have to buy one although the ½” one will do.
2. It turns out that to make a pocket that is 1 ½” tall and 3/8” deep at the top and flush at the bottom is a 14 degree angle. And the most common dovetail bit is a 14 degree bit. Go figure.
3. Here is the finished jig:
   
   
   The idea is to have the router on an angle to the surface of the wood. Using a 14 degree slope on the jig and a 14 degree bit means that the cut at the top of the pocket will be perpendicular to the surface. That is, the two 14’s cancel each other out so you get a nice grip at the top of the pocket.
4. Start with a scrap of plywood. I would suggest 3/8” or ¼”. I used 1/2 “and it made the distance the bit has to plunge too deep and the bit would barely make it. If the plywood and the OSB scrap were both ¼”, the whole system would work better.
5. Grab some 3/8” by ¾” scraps to use as cleats. At a corner of the plywood set two cleats in place and the router. Like this. Make a mark on the plywood at the very center of the router – center of the bit.
6. Remove cleats and router from plywood. Using a square, make a line both directions from that point. The measure up 1 ½ inches and make another line. As to the width of the pocket, I make mine comfortable for my large GLOVED hands. Just lay your hand down and make a mark. Draw a vertical line through this mark. You should now have a rectangular box drawn on the page. Place the router over the three other points and draw and line around the outside of the router base. Using the square, you should be able to draw two lines that just touch the arc lines. You now have a box described by the two cleats and these lines. But you want to create room to nail on cleats along these lines so draw another line ¾” outside these two lines. Should look something like this (I still need to make room for the cleats along the two lines. Just lay cleats adjacent to the outside of these lines and make another line. Cut the plywood along these outer lines.

7. Cut the base plywood to 18 ¼” by 8”. Glue and nail a cleat to on long side (not to the edge, but to one side along one edge. This will make a fence to align your box piece.

8. Mark 8 ¼” from one edge and make a mark on the edge that has the cleat.
9. Make two 14 degree wedges. I use a tapering jig, but the adjustable ‘T’ pusher on the table saw should be close enough.

10. Assemble the top and the wedges with glue and nails. Attach cleats at outer edge of the top of the plywood. These cleats are the boundary for the router.

11. Attach to base. Align the center-line of this wedge piece to the 8 ¼” line, flush with the edge of the lower piece (cleated side is down, but along that same edge. Again the thinner the base, the easier it is to make the router bit work.
12. Plunge route set to about ½” the plywood, then the OSB and finally the box part which is clamped below the OSB. Align the right edge of the OSB with the edge of the side of a hive box for a centered handle. Align to the left for an end box part.

13. Lessons learned: Use thinner plywood and OSB. I used a Freud ½” collet Bit.

I’m always open for suggested topics for future podcasts and if you know someone that would be a great guest, please let me know.

Bees will rear queens in three different circumstances. Swarm queens, supersedure queens, and emergency queens. Swarm queens are reared when a colony is booming, resources are plentiful, and the colony is ready to initiate a natural split. Swarm queens are reared out of desire and not out of need, and are also reared vertically in queen cups. Since swarm queens are initiated by bee when conditions are optimal, the results are quality queens.

Supersedure queens are reared when the colony is unhappy with the performance of the queen and decide to replace her. Supersedure does not consider availability of resource or drone population for proper mating. Supersedure queens are reared from eggs of an unacceptable or failing queen, therefore results are marginal at best. You will find some folks that say supersedure queen are perfectly fine. Just keep in mind, that although young supersedure queen may seem just fine, come Fall when the weather starts getting tougher is when the poor quality shows up. This also, coincidentally, is the worst time to have to try and requeen.

Emergency queens are the worst case for the bees. They have no laying queen and the colony will perish if the situation is not rectified. There is no current queen so one is raised from eggs laid in worker cells. What differentiates a queen from a worker is the food that is fed to the larvae on or around day 3. This happens to coincide with the bees needing to get the larvae from the horizontal cell to the new vertical cell they build on the face of the comb. To get the larvae to the correct position, they float it out on thinned out royal jelly. Does this thinned out royal jelly have the same nutritional value? Right at the critical time of a larvae being either a worker or a queen. There may not be an abundance of resources for the bees to produce quality royal jelly and they just do the best they can. Out of necessity, they will attempt to raise multiple emergency queen in hope that one is successful. Any larvae that may be a little older (more than 3 days and didn’t continue to get feed straight royal jelly) will also be the first to hatch and kill all the younger, perhaps better quality, unhatched queens. Out of desperation, bees will try and rear a queen from a non-fertile laying worker larvae, so wouldn’t it be plausible they would attempt to rear from a slightly older than prime larvae? Are “good enough” queens OK, or do you want the best queens?

So next time you plan to do a split, either wait until you have some nice swarm cells, or truly think through the long term costs before you write off a $20 quality queen as too expensive. Any beekeeper trying to deal with a late Fall/Winter queen failure would gladly drop $20 if given the chance for a do-over.

Overview

Foundation & Wiring

Eyelets & Assembly

Jigs & Air Nailers

All you need is a scrap board, 2 frame spacers and a cheap handle. I know, it looks like a fancy handle, but it was the cheapest one Lowe’s had. It was in the “clearance” pile and was less than $1.
Six frame nails and two screws, a wa-la! a $2 frame spacing tool.