Duane Bischoff will emcee the meeting while Dave Broxterman demonstrates and discusses the all-valuable candy board. If your hives are light on honey going into the winter, the candy board is your friend. We see the candy board as sort of a cheap insurance policy. Let's consider some benefits:

• If the bees deplete all the honey stores, they hit the candy board and this may help feed them for the remainder of the winter, or at least until you look in the hive again.
• Condensation is a big concern in the hive. Cold air outside and warm bees inside make moisture. This moisture can collect on the top of the hive. The candy board will absorb most, if not all the moisture into the sugar and likely keep it from dropping back down on to the cluster. Wet bees will die.
• There is also a hole that passes up through the candy board and a 5/8 inch hole is drilled through the front. See the pictures and the video. Not only does this provide an upper entrance (in the event dead bees clog the lower entrance over the winter), it also allows warm humid air from inside the hive to exit out this hole to prevent condensation in the hive.

Before the meeting, here's some more info, and a video on candy boards. Take a look and bring your questions to the meeting. Let's get ready to "candy up" and overwinter some bees!

If you've missed a previous newsletter, find them all archived here.

SIBA Meetings occur the 3rd Thursday of each month through the year with topics being added to the event ahead of each meeting. Meetings are held at 6:30pm at the Sunman American Legion unless otherwise stated ahead of time in the newsletter and website. We're also looking for volunteers to help make the club GO. Contact us to let us know you are interested in helping out!

Check the website or Facebook for the latest information.

• SIBA Facebook Page - General Announcements, etc.
• Discussion Group - Bee questions answered within 24 hours