Report from the Summer Workshop at Jean Ranger's Apiary.
Time: Sunday,July 11 at 1:30 pm
Location: Jean Ranger’s
3664 County Rd. # 3
St.Isidore, Ontario
Hello Members,
The popular, successful and very educational summer workshop took place
in a beautiful setting in St. Isidore at Jean Ranger’s apiary.
Jean and his brother-in-law, Benoit Latour, and Pierre Houle
demonstrated a close-up view of their operation and their queen rearing techniques.
Explanations were graciously provided in French and English.
The following topics and areas of the operation were looked at:
-Removing honey from the hives
-Dehumidifying system
-Proper temperature
-Hand vs. mechanical uncapping
-Use of a whirl-dry
-Disposing of cappings
-Cold filtration of honey
In the beeyard:
-Use of the Nicot queen rearing system
-Preparation of the cell builder
-Queen cells in a cell builder will be shown
In the yard for an explanation of the queen rearing system.
Removing the queen cells from the hive.
Queen cells in production.
Pierre Houle expains the use of the "Bee Healthy" essential oil treatment.
The formula was distrubuted to make your own and is available here.
BEE HEALTHY.
Explaining the Cloak Board queen rearing system.
Taking the Cloak Board apart.
Pierre Houle demonstrates and explains the use of the Nicot queen rearing system.
Jean Ranger explains methods used to remove bees from the frames for extraction,
including "".
Explanation of the operation of the bee blower.
Benoit Latour demonstrates the operation of the bee blower.
Jean Ranger Apiary - the room and the equipment for drying the honey.
Jean Ranger explains the use of a dryer and de-humidifier system
used to remove water from the honey before extraction.
Spinning the honey from the frames.
The hot knife and commercial spinner used to extract the honey, which is then
pumped and filtered into a storage tank.
A nice commerical spinner manufactured by F.W. Jones in operation,
while fascinated onlookers observe.
Use of an 80 mesh screen used to remove debris from the liquid honey.
All in all this was an outstanding event and excellent way
to learn about commercial honey production
and meet with other bee keepers and just have fun.
Our sincere thanks to all for the great effort put into making this event a resounding success.
