2017 Centre County Beekeeping off to a great start!

The club's initial meeting for 2017 was held at CPI in Pleasant Gap on Feb. 22.  About 60 people attended - new and old members, experienced and beginning beeks! We want to welcome everyone back and a special hello and welcome to new folks joining us!

We owe a special thanks to Joe DeLuca and Paul Donovan who have led this group for several years - great job!  New officers were installed - Nellie Bhattarai and Dee Bagshaw as Co-Presidents and Fran Cooley as Treasurer. One of our members kindly noted the following main points for the meeting:

1. Joe stepped down as President, and Paul stepped down as Treasurer after years (and I mean YEARS) of faithful service.
2. Dee and Nellie stepped up as co-Presidents, and Fran stepped up as Treasurer (dues, which are $10 per individual or family, can go to Fran Cooley, but they can wait for the next meeting you attend). Kindly extend your thanks to all of the aforementioned folks for keeping our club up and running.
3. Joe provided an overview of equipment for beginners (there was a large number of new beeks).
4. Craig Cella mentioned that he will be making packages available to the club ($113). Warren Miller will be making deep nucs available to the club from Aaron Fisher's bees ($120, delivery April 8). Joe Riley (Spring Creek Honey) will have bees available in May. The contact info for these folks is on the club website - www.centrecountybees.com. 
5. A lot of people suffered losses this winter in their hives - discussed some reasons.
6. Steve McAninch and another beek will be offering a workshop for beginning beeks THIS SATURDAY, 2/25. 

NEXT meeting: March 22, 7p at CPI in Pleasant Gap - topics and details to follow soon.  For more regular updates, go to the website and sign up to be on the listserve - this is where announcements are made, questions are asked and answered about your bees - join in!