Welcome to the Wannabee Hobby Beekeepers site. Our club was organized in 2009 and has grown to over 200 members. The purpose of our club is to create and further develop interest in honey bees and beekeeping in our beautiful Black Hills area as well as elsewhere. Our club provides a forum to share knowledge and mutual interests in beekeeping.
The Mission of our club is to provide our membership and the general public with information and discussions to promote honey bees and beekeeping in the Black Hills.
2012 Meetings
Our monthly meetings begin at 6:00 PM on the 2nd Wednesday of the month at the Canyon Lake Senior Citizens Center. Not a member? Join us anyway to see if you would be interested.
Be sure to register your honey bees with the State of South Dakota
Our December 14, 2011 meeting included the election of new club officers. Welcome our new 2012 WannaBee Club Officers. See the Contact Us page for more details.
- Bill Clements – President
- Tom Allen – Vice President
- Dani Johnson – Treasurer
- James Ann Barlean – Secretary & Webmaster
Postings Since August, 2011
Troy Dean submitted this recent article that Tests Show Most Store Honey Isn’t Honey (11/2011)
- Flossie found this web site that discusses in detail how to build a simple bee vac. It gives a detailed inventory list complete with pictures and instructions, with comments at the end suggesting improvements. It’s located at the Top-Bar Bees website (and also under Classes & Events on our website). (11/2011)
- Asian Honey, Banned in Europe, Is Flooding U.S. Grocery Shelves - includes an interview with Richard Adee, Washington Legislative Charman of the American Honey Producers Association. Scary how much adulterated honey is flowing illegally into our country. “Another favorite con among Chinese brokers was to mix sugar water, malt sweeteners, corn or rice syrup, jaggery, barley malt sweetener or other additives with a bit of actual honey. In recent years, many shippers have eliminated the honey completely and just use thickened, colored, natural or chemical sweeteners labeled as honey” (11/2011)
- Richard Adee of Bruce, SD owns Adee Honey Farms (since 1957) and is the largest beekeeper in America (probably the world) with 80,000 hives.
- South Dakota State University Bee Health page full of useful resource links (10/2011)
- The Warre’ Store Site is full of information on bees and beekeeping (9/2011)
- EXCELLENT Video on the Life Cycle of the Honeybee and Varroa Mite (by Jeff Harris, USDA-ARS) (9/2011)
- Benefits of bees keep beekeepers buzzing (RC Journal, Jerry/Nicole/Tom – 9/2011)
- Lee provided this link to the location of registered apiaries in Pennington County (9/2011)
Did you know? In 2009, South Dakota had 185 registered beekeepers with 30% being commercial producers and the remaining 70% being hobbyist beekeepers. There were 290,000 colonies registered in the state in 2009. Nationwide, the average annual production per hive was 67 pounds (from 2002 to 2007). In South Dakota it was an estimated 71 pounds per hive in the same time frame. South Dakota ranks between 1st and 5th in the United States in total honey production (in 2009, we were number 2 with 17.8 million pounds of honey produced). See more info in this brochure from the SD Department of Agriculture.
