The York County Beekeepers Association held an open hive on August 19th on a beautiful and sunny day in Kennebunkport.  Jen Lund, our state apiarist, led the open hive with 20 YCBA members in attendance. We were also fortunate to have the MSBA beekeeper of the year and Maine Bee company owner Jason Peters travel down with Jen to participate in the open hive.

Jen inspected two full size colonies and one nucleus colony with a focus on the current condition of the colonies and actions required to prep the colonies for winter. Jen provided a host of observations on the state of the hives providing everyone with some great learning on a myriad of items, and some actions for Kevin.  Two mite rolls were completed with a good deal of discussion about Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies. 

Rob Hull shared some very cool 3-D printed inner cover entrance caps he made that work great, no more stuffing grass in the entrance that the bees push back out. Hopefully, Rob will come up with a path for making more of them available to beekeepers!

A potluck lunch followed with all kinds of great food and treats including Lynn Gobeil’s Eastern Apicultural Society (EAS) award winning honey caramels, the very essence of beekeeping magic captured in a single bite!

It was a great day filled with honey bee education, camaraderie, good food, and just a lot of fun. Thank you to everyone who came out for the event.