PPBA

GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING INFORMATION

Thursday, January 18th, 6:30pm: GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING

The speaker at our January meeting will be fellow beekeeper Scott Tanner, who will be talking about mentoring.
The January General Membership Meeting is also the Election of Officers. See below.

ELECTION OF OFFICERS

It is time for our annual elections, which were postponed from the October meeting. The offices to be voted on are
President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer and one Board Member position. Note: Mike Halby and Sandy
Halby will not be running for President and Secretary as they are stepping down from those positions.
Please consider running for office or Board Member. If you are interested in running, please contact Sandy Halby,
current PPBA Secretary, at mandshalby@comcast.net or call 719-528-5483 by 8pm on January 17th or announce
your intention at the meeting on January 18th.

2024 MEETING AND EVENT DATES

January 18 th General Membership Meeting
March 16 th – 17 th PPBA Bee School
April 18 th General Membership Meeting
July 18 th General Membership Meeting
October 17 th General Membership Meeting

The PPBA meets from 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm on the third Thursday of the months of January,
April, July and October. We are looking for a permanent location for our meeting but in the
meantime, please be aware that the meeting locations may change from meeting to
meeting.

The January 2024 meeting will be at the Gold Hills Police Station, 955 West Moreno Avenue
in Colorado Springs, in their Community Room, just inside the entry Doors of the building.
The first half hour (6:30-7:00) of the PPBA General Membership meetings is reserved for
socializing and general questions with mentors and other PPBA members. The formal
portion of the meeting will start promptly at 7:00 pm and will include association business
and the presentations for that meeting. There will be time for questions during or after the
formal portion of the meeting, but those questions should be limited to the topics being
discussed.

IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN – DUES ARE DUE!

PPBA MEMBERSHIP DUES FOR 2024! PPBA annual dues are $15.00 per family (non-prorated, payable by
cash or check by March 31st each year). Please send Sandy your dues by mailing them to her at the address on
the last page of this newsletter. If you have any question as to whether your dues are due, contact Sandy.

HELP OUT PPBA – VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES!
We need volunteers to help with the following PPBA activities and projects!
MENTORING!! We need mentors! If you’ve been a beekeeper for a while and would like to be a mentor, contact
Sandy to update the roster and get hooked up with a beekeeper who may need some help!
PPBA Guest Speakers. PPBA gets lots of requests for guest speakers at schools, service organizations and
local expos or events. Most speaker requests are just for a one-hour long presentation on beekeeping. If you
could speak about beekeeping to a school or group, please contact Sandy at 719-528-5483 or email
mandshalby@comcast.net.

WHAT’S THE BUZZ?

HOSTING BEEHIVES! If you want to put a hive on someone’s property – we have people who want bees but
don’t want to be the beekeeper! Some are in town (Colorado Springs) and some are out east of Colorado
Springs. Contact Sandy at mandshalby@comcast.net for more info!

PPBA ON FACEBOOK! PPBA is on Facebook! If you’re a Facebooker – search Pikes Peak
Beekeepers and we should pop up. This is a not closed group and you do NOT have to be a
member of PPBA to belong to this FB group. Membership is limited, however, to beekeepers,
interest in beekeeping and Front Range.

WATCH WHERE YOU ARE GETTING YOUR BEES AND QUEENS FROM!! PPBA members

Just a reminder: please use caution when ordering queens and bees … please ensure they
are NOT from the southern tier of states (including Texas, southern California, Arizona, New
Mexico, and Florida). There have been reports of “hot” queens (Africanized) coming out of
those states. As one queen producer states on their website: “Inter-breeding with feral
Africanized bees does undoubtedly continue but we take measures to minimize their influence.” They try to make
sure their mating yards are primarily “safe” drones, but as you can imagine, there’s no guarantee that Africanized
drones are not present and are not mating with their queens. We want to prevent importing any Africanized bees
into Colorado. Be sure you know where your bee supplier is getting those bees from!!
INTEGRATED HIVE MANAGEMENT FOR COLORADO BEEKEEPERS. This booklet is published by Colorado
State University and just become available on-line! The sub-title is “Strategies for Identifying and Mitigating Pests
and Diseases Affecting Colorado’s Honey Bees” and it covers everything from mice to mites! Check it out on this
link. BTW – We also have two hardcopies in the PPBA library for check-out. Here’s the direct link to the updated
version of the booklet: CO-IHM-Book-for-Print-2020.pdf (colostate.edu)

BEAR DAMAGE!! If you have bear or wildlife damage to your hive, contact the Colorado Division of
Wildlife at Colorado Parks & Wildlife – Game Damage (state.co.us) for information about filing a claim.
DRIFTWATCH: FYI, there’s a website out there called Driftwatch.org. According to their website: “DriftWatch™ is
a tool for identifying specialty crop sites and to further enhance communications between producers of specialty
crops and pesticide applicators that promote awareness and stewardship activities to help prevent and manage
drift effects that sometimes occur from spray operations.” You can register your beehive location and they will
notify you before any pesticides are applied (in rural areas; not intended for sites less than ½ acre).

EXTRACTOR RENTAL: To rent one of the PPBA extractors (we have three manual extractors
and most of the other extractor equipment you’ll need), visit http://www.pikespeakbeekeepers.org,
select the “Extractor Rental Info” tab and follow the instructions there. Remember, the
extractor and equipment will be clean when you pick it up and it will need to be cleaned
prior to return or you will forfeit your deposit. Hot water and soap at the coin operated car
wash is the quickest and easiest method for initial cleaning. Then, thoroughly rinse with clean
water at home. There’s also a link on the website to a video about cleaning the extractor.