Author: T-Rex

Posted in beekeeping

16 hours till….AUCTION!

Posted on by T-Rex

BCBA’s annual auction is TOMORROW night starting at 6:30PM!
Posted in beekeeping

The Pollinators – movie!

Posted on by T-Rex

The movie is ON!

Wednesday November 6, 2019 at 6:30pm

Message from Howard Kerr:

Link to the Maryville location ticket purchase:

https://tickets.demand.film/event/9106


We have an opportunity to see here in Maryville a truly great film about bees. It is called The Pollinators. It is a documentary film about migratory beekeeping and will be shown here in Maryville on November 6 at 6:30 pm IF WE SELL A TOTAL OF 50 TICKETS BY 28 October – just 3 days away. We buy the tickets online as shown in the attached flyer. You can get a 10% discount if you use the discount code TN10. If we cannot sell 50 tickets by 28 October the movie will not be shown here and your card will not be charged. And we will miss a great movie

This movie has been chosen as the best documentary at several film festivals and was a smash hit at the recent Apimondia conference in Canada. I strongly urge each of our members to buy tickets for your family and friends. It is about 90 minutes long.

Flyer info is below…

Sign up to see “The Pollinators” in selected Tennessee cities on November 6

One of every three bites of food we eat depends on honeybees and other pollinators. 

Over 1,000 of the 1,200 most common fruits and vegetables depend on pollinators. 

Over one-half of all honeybee hives are now dying every year in our country. 

The Pollinators is a cinematic journey around the United States following migratory beekeepers and their truckloads of honey bees as they pollinate the flowers that become the fruits, nuts and vegetables we all eat. The many challenges these beekeepers and their bees face en route reveal the many threats to their survival that bees face now. The filmmakers talk to farmers, scientists, chefs and academics along the way to give a broad perspective about the threats to honey bees, what it means to our food security and how we can improve it. This film has already been selected by 25 national and international film festivals and has been honored as “Best Documentary” at seven of them. The Tennessee Beekeepers Association, Tennessee Environmental Council, Tennessee Sierra Club and many other groups fully endorse this documentary and are promoting it statewide. 

On November 6, 2019, help bring The Pollinators to Tennessee cities through the Demand Film program. This innovative way to share the film doesn’t rely on traditional theater placements, but uses audience demand instead. Tickets are reserved in advance, but do not get charged until the ticket threshold for each theater is reached (about 50 seats). The tickets need to be ordered online by October 28. Theaters in nineteen cities are signed up and selling tickets: Chattanooga, Clarksville, Cleveland, Cookeville, Crossville, Dyersburg, Greeneville, Hendersonville, Johnson City, Knoxville, Maryville, McMinnville, Memphis, Morristown, Mt. Juliet, Nashville, Spring Hill and Tullahoma. You can see the film trailer and reserve your tickets here: https://us.demand.film/the-pollinators/  Buy extra for local decision-makers (elected officials, parks and highway officials, agriculture teachers, garden club leaders, local farmers and media) in your town and invite them to join you. Order your tickets today. 

Two excellent articles have appeared on “The Pollinators” in recent days. Peter Nelson, the film’s creator, was interviewed today on National Public Radio’s “Marketplace” program. Here is an extended transcript of that broadcast interview:  https://www.marketplace.org/2019/10/23/why-dwindling-bee-populations-are-threatening-u-s-agricultural/ 

You can also read more about this film at this Sierra Club link: https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/one-third-our-food-supply-relies-very-sick-species-honeybees?fbclid=IwAR0HJnwH32fhzgfpjKxsISWI2nr8cuWx15A4qOx_KEf1sK3QVprUPBAjuI8

BECAUSE OF THE STRONG INTEREST IN TENNESSEE, DEMAND FILM IS GIVING US A 10% DISCOUNT ON THE TICKETS. JUST ENTER “TN10” IN THE DISCOUNT CODE FIELD WHEN YOU ORDER YOUR TICKETS. BE SURE TO PURCHASE YOUR TICKETS ONLINE BY OCTOBER 28 TO INSURE THE FILM WILL BE SHOWN. 


The most important living creatures on this planet (honeybees)* can’t save themselves. 

But, yes, yes, we can. The best place to start is to go to the link and order your tickets TODAY.

*https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/23245/20190709/bees-are-the-most-important-living-being-on-earth.htm

Posted in beekeeping

TCA 44-15-112

Posted on by T-Rex

It is ILLEGAL in the State of Tennessee to either sell or give away used beekeeping boxes or frames.

The ONLY exception to this law is IF a hives have live bees in it AND it has been inspected by a TN State (or local) Inspector. OR if the equipment has been boiled in lye for at least 30 minutes (the lye breaks the wood down so much, that it leaves the boxes unusable, so this option really isn’t much of an option).

Even if you know and trust the person giving or selling you equipment, don’t do it! You may be unknowingly be spreading American Foulbrood (AFB) to your bees. They too may be unaware that the equipment is contaminated. The AFB spores can last 40+ years.

If a hive gets AFB, the only way to get rid of AFB is to burn the hives with the bees in it at night. It is a traumatizing and expensive to have AFB in your hives and in your area.

An eight mile radius around your hives will be put under quarantine and the State Apiarist and his inspectors will need to inspect every frame of every beekeeper’s hives in that 8 mile radius. This could easily be hundreds of hives they need to inspect. Besides putting other beekeepers at risk, doing so ties up the inspectors and makes them not available to beekeepers for their many other job functions. It also greatly inconveniences other beekeepers.

So even if you find equipment in your grandfathers barn or family basement and are thinking of using it, remember It is not worth the risk.

Tennessee Code 44-15-112 – Used beekeeping equipment.
*No person shall sell or give to any other person any used beekeeping equipment until the equipment has been sanitized by a method approved by the state apiarist. This requirement will not apply to equipment that is occupied by live bees.