RALU News – Volume 6 Number 1 November 2013 RALU news The Retirees’ Association of Lakehead University (RALU) was formed in 2007 to give a unified voice to retirees, their IN THIS ISSUE: spouses or partners; to provide social and creative interaction and debate; to be a forum for discussion of matters of President’s Message common interest; to provide contact Did You Know? with similar associations, monitoring Member’s Articles retiree activity; to pursue benefits and Upcoming Events considerations from the University that CURAC report match the best practices of other Our Thunderwolves institutions. Humour Hub There are eight meetings of the full PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE membership per year; September (AGM) to April. A field trip is organized RALU President's Report – 2013 in the Fall. Welcome to our new season. As with all Executive Committee: organizations, summer is a quiet time for RALU, but we are now getting into gear for President: Dave Kemp an interesting fall/winter season. The Program Committee has put together a Vice President: Clem Kent series of talks that over the next few months will introduce us to safe driving for Secretary: Beverley Stefureak seniors, aspects of genealogy, teaching in China, and more. If any of you have Treasurer: Bonny Wigmore suggestions for future presentations please let me know. All of the presentations will Past President (ex officio): Brian take place at the 55+ Centre on River Phillips Street. Communications Committee: Kathy We continue to keep in touch with other Crewdson, Walter Momot, Margot retirees’ organizations through CURAC. Ponder, Ian Dew Earlier in the year, with the financial support of the Emeritus Professors’ Program Committee: Ernie Epp, Committee of LUFA, Brian Phillips attended Jenny Phillips, Jim Stafford its annual conference in St John’s, Newfoundland. His report can be found Home page: http://ralu.la/ elsewhere in this newsletter. One issue that has been around for several years now, and is still outstanding, 1 RALU News – Volume 6 Number 1 November 2013 involves pensions. As most of you will The flowers are frozen, and the bees are know, RALU has been working through the nowhere to be seen. They are now Financial Services Commission of Ontario confined to and clustered in their abodes (FSCO) to deal with concerns over the for the next five months. Actually, the university’s handling of our pension plan. whole summer has been a preparation for RALU’s Pension and Benefits Committee the coming winter. Our honeybees here in has worked hard over the last several northern Ontario evolved most recently in years to deal with this and we hope that Europe, where the colony must survive a the issue is now close to resolution. At the long winter or perish. The strategy for moment we are still waiting to hear from survival necessitates storing enough nectar FSCO. As soon as we do I will let you and pollen to keep themselves alive until know what has transpired. the days begin to lengthen and rearing of the young begins, as early as January. As always, if you have any comments or The colony population increases more suggestions on RALU’s activities, I would quickly once pollen and nectar are be happy to hear from you. available from pussy willows, alder, fruit trees and dandelions. Gathering the Dave Kemp Your tongue is the fastest healing part of your body You burn more calories sleeping that watching TV A Crowded Hive Will Swarm You begin to feel thirsty when your body loses 1% of water nectar and pollen by the bees involves a The human body contains 96,000 km of complex system of gathering information blood vessels and communication and cooperation among the 80,000 members of the summer bee hive. Tasks in the colony are usually performed by bees based on their age. First they are hive cleaners (but MEMBER’S ARTICLES unlike humans who are 74 years old and still cleaning their abode, bees are Honeybees and Winter promoted), then they become nurse bees feeding the young larvae pollen and secreted brood food. Later they are involved in comb construction, secreting beeswax and turning it into those beautiful combs with hexagonal cells for storing honey and pollen, with areas also used for rearing brood. One of the last tasks is guarding the hive, stinging intruders such as honey collecting robber bees, bears and Beehives Buried in Snow 2 RALU News – Volume 6 Number 1 November 2013 beekeepers, as well as bee- eating Bees that emerged in the fall, and didn’t hornets and skunks. Foraging usually have to raise babies will live for the whole doesn’t begin until a bee is about 21 days winter, unlike their hardworking summer of age, although there is some plasticity in sisters who only live about 35 days. The the performance of the various tasks queen honeybee actually begins laying depending on the needs of the colony. eggs in the honeycomb in the center of the Foragers first need to locate a source of clustered bees of the hive in January, even nectar and or pollen. If they find a if it is thirty below zero outside. The particularly rich productive patch of middle of the cluster will be about 93 flowers, they will communicate information degrees Fahrenheit, and the increasing day regarding the source to their hive mates, length stimulates the colony to begin by performing a dance indicating both the brood rearing. The colder it gets, the direction and distance to the location of tighter the bees cluster. Of course, the the find. bees are only able to maintain such a temperature if there is sufficient honey available for fuel to keep them warm, and if there are enough bees in the colony to cuddle together in a ball and generate sufficient heat. Pollen is also necessary as soon as those eggs hatch, so it behooves the colony to have some stored pollen inside the hive, as there is none available to the bees outside at winter temperatures. Larvae require both nectar Harvesting a Beautiful Honeycomb and pollen, and as the colony increases in size, more stores will be required. A In addition, they may give interested bees colony without sufficient stores in the fall, a taste of the nectar they have gathered, about 85 pounds of honey, with pollen as and a whiff of the of the flower’s fragrance. well, will likely perish before flowers bloom Many bees will follow the dancer, and be and nectar is again available in the spring. directed to the source, and in turn perform Lack of pollen will result in the bees using a dance when they return to the hive with stores from their own bodies to secrete the their bounty. It doesn’t take long for royal jelly needed for the queen, and the thousands of bees to start working a brood food for the larvae. When the lucrative area for its honey and pollen. winter temperature occasionally rises to 50 Years ago, clover fields in bloom were a degrees Fahrenheit, the bees may take a fine source of forage for honeybees, but whirl around the bee yard. Even in now farmers cut it before it blooms in January, with snow on the ground, bees order to preserve the protein content of will take these cleansing flights. Some will the hay for the cattle, so one of the best perish in the snow, but they will soon be plants for honey and pollen is no longer replaced by young bees emerging in the available to the bees. July used to be the center of the cluster. best month for honey production. That is Our summer in the Thunder Bay area was no longer the case because of “cut before not ideal for honey bees this year. July bloom” regarding the clover and alfalfa. was extremely wet and cold, and it is Bees are more dependent than ever on usually a time when bees gather much of weeds such as dandelions, goldenrod and the honey for the year. Another problem asters growing on their own in the wild. our local bees are dealing with for the first 3 RALU News – Volume 6 Number 1 November 2013 time is the mite Varroa destructor. It is a roundup on the genetically modified crops. very small external parasite of the Roundup is sprayed on these genetically honeybee, about the size of the period at modified roundup-resistant crops. All the end of this sentence. For 25 years other non-resistant-plants in the field and surrounding the field are killed, resulting in a lack of both nectar and pollen for the bees. That is the current plight of the bees: poor weather and herbicides resulting in lack of winter stores, parasites to weaken them, and poisonous pesticides affecting the winter survival of colonies. Canada lost 30% of its bees last winter. It is scary, as one third of the food Queen bee with workers we eat is dependent on pollination by concerned local beekeepers successfully honeybees. With the world population ever increasing, we need to guard the kept our Thunder Bay District free of that health of every bee. parasite, but last year some uninformed person foolishly imported infested bees to Jeanette Momot our area. Before they were discovered, the mite had spread to 200 colonies in the Thailand, Our Second Home Slate River area. The mites suck the blood of the bees. We first went to Malaysia in 1960 (Malaya Varroa mites in a hive will shorten the lives as it was then) to teach in the British Army of the bees, damage their immune systems (making them susceptible to Schools during the communist insurgency.