Brown County Beekeepers Association

09/30/2026

🐝 BCBA Out in the Community! 🌻🍯

What a great day at the Garden! Dave Elsen and Carl Fisher from EF Honey and BCBA President Chris Groth represented the Brown County Beekeepers Association during the Green Bay Botanical Garden Fall Free Day, talking bees, beekeeping and honey with visitors of all ages.

And judging by the pictures, the observation hive was a hit! 🐝 There’s something pretty cool about watching kids get eye-to-eye with thousands of honey bees and seeing that curiosity kick in.

Visitors also had a chance to learn more about honey bees and take home some local honey and other hive products. 🍯

A big THANK YOU to Dave, Carl and Chris for giving their time and representing BCBA. Events like this are exactly what community outreach is about—getting people interested in honey bees, answering questions and maybe inspiring a few future beekeepers along the way!

And thank you to the Green Bay Botanical Garden for continuing to give BCBA opportunities to share the world of honey bees with the community. 🐝🌻

09/21/2026

🐝 September Meeting Highlights — Education, Laughs & a Little Heat! 🔥

Our September BCBA meeting packed a lot of great education into one evening!

Wisconsin State Apiarist Brooke Nikkila-Sommerfeldt joined us as our featured speaker and gave an informative presentation on hive inspections, honey bee health and disease management. Having Brooke share what she sees in colonies across Wisconsin gave our members plenty of useful information to take back to their own apiaries.

As a thank-you for spending the evening with us, Co-Education Chair Mimi presented Brooke with a custom BCBA hive tool — because every beekeeper can always use another hive tool! 🐝

And before Brooke took the floor, Rance Bennett of This Old Hive brought the heat 🔥 for our Meeting Before the Meeting! Rance presented on Living Stressors — controlling pests inside and outside the hive and made sure everyone was paying attention right from the start with that introduction video. 🤣🐝 Apparently subtlety was not part of the lesson plan!

A big THANK YOU to Brooke, Rance, Mimi and our Education Committee for another great evening of learning, sharing and having some fun along the way.

Good education. Good people. Better beekeeping. 🐝

09/15/2026

🐝 TOMORROW NIGHT — Come Early & Make an Evening of It!

The September BCBA Newsletter has landed, and there’s a lot happening before tomorrow night’s regular meeting even begins!

From 5:30–6:30 PM, we’re adding an informal BCBA Social Hour. Bring a snack or treat to share if you’d like — BCBA will provide the water and soda.

The idea is simple: come early and choose how you want to spend the hour. Catch up with fellow beekeepers, swap stories and ideas, meet our featured speaker and Wisconsin State Apiarist Brooke Nikkila-Sommerfeldt, or sit in on Rance Bennett’s Meeting Before the Meeting session on controlling living stressors and pests inside and outside the hive.

Then at 6:30 PM, Brooke takes over for our featured September education program. 🐝

🍯 And a quick THANK YOU!

A big shout-out to Dave Elsen and Carl Fisher of EF Honey for hosting another great BCBA Hive Dive! Members got hands-on experience pulling honey, checking moisture, testing for mites, treating colonies and working through fall and winter preparation.

That’s exactly what the Hive Dives are supposed to be — members getting into the bees, learning by doing and sharing experience. Thanks, Dave and Carl, for making it happen!

📅 Wednesday, September 16
⏰ 5:30–6:30 PM — Social Hour + Meeting Before the Meeting
🐝 6:30 PM — September Membership Meeting & Featured Education

Come for the social. Come for the education. Better yet — come for all of it! 🍪🥤🐝

09/13/2026

🐝 Another Sneak Peek from the September BCBA Newsletter!

Before Brooke Nikkila-Sommerfeldt takes the stage for our main meeting, come early for another Meeting Before the Meeting featuring Rance Bennett of This Old Hive!

Rance will be tackling “Living Stressors: Controlling Pests Inside & Outside the Hive.”

And unfortunately, Varroa aren’t the only freeloaders interested in our bees. 😂 From pests inside the hive to predators and unwanted visitors around the apiary, Rance will walk through practical ways to recognize, prevent and control the things that compete with, weaken—or sometimes outright attack—our colonies.

If you’ve attended one of Rance’s programs before, you know his style: hands-on, practical beekeeping with an emphasis on understanding WHY we’re doing something, not simply being told what to do.

📅 Wednesday, September 16
⏰ 5:30–6:30 PM — Meeting Before the Meeting
🐝 Rance Bennett — This Old Hive
🎯 Living Stressors: Controlling Pests Inside & Outside the Hive

Then stick around at 6:30 PM for our featured education with Wisconsin State Apiarist Brooke Nikkila-Sommerfeldt.

Come early and make a night of it — two educational sessions, two different perspectives, and plenty of beekeeping talk! 🐝

09/12/2026

🐝 A Little Sneak Peek from the September BCBA Newsletter!

While we wait for this month’s newsletter to hit your inbox Sunday, we figured we’d give you a preview of what’s coming — and September’s featured speaker is a good one!

We’re excited to welcome Brooke Nikkila-Sommerfeldt, Wisconsin State Apiarist / Apiary Program Coordinator, as the featured education speaker at our September meeting.

Brooke works directly with beekeepers through Wisconsin’s apiary program, giving her a perspective that most of us simply don’t get to see. She’ll be talking about honey bee health, colony management, pests and diseases, and some of the challenges she’s seeing in apiaries across Wisconsin.

This is also your opportunity to hear directly from our State Apiarist, so bring your questions! Whether you manage two colonies or two hundred, there should be plenty to take back to your own bee yard.

📅 Wednesday, September 16
⏰ Featured Education — 6:30 PM

And yes… judging by that photo, Brooke takes “getting close to the bees” to another level. 😂🐝

Stay tuned — we’ll be sharing a few more sneak peeks from the September newsletter before the full issue arrives Sunday!

08/25/2026

08/22/2026

🐝 BCBA MEMBERS-JOIN US SUNDAY MORNING — HANDS-ON HIVE WORK!

Want to get some hands-on fall hive management experience? Join Carl Fisher and Dave Elsen of EF Honey tomorrow morning as they work the colonies near the Green Bay Botanical Garden.

🍯 Honey Harvest — See how they pull honey frame-by-frame, shake and brush the bees, and use a refractometer to check frames that are close.

🐝 Varroa Management — If we have enough members join us, we’ll plan to conduct a mite check, followed by OAV treatments.

❄️ Winter Prep — They’ll also be bringing out the quilt boxes, insulated top covers, entrance reducers, mouse guards and robbing screens as they start getting the apiary ready for winter.

NEW BEEKEEPERS ARE WELCOME!
Don’t have your own gear yet? We’ll have bee suits available to use. Come watch, help, ask questions and get into the hives with experienced beekeepers.

📅 Sunday, August 23
⏰ 8:00 AM
📍 Hives across from NWTC, just past the Green Bay Botanical Garden
🚗 Park in the NWTC parking lot, walk across the road and through the large wire-fence gate. We’ll be down by the greenhouses.

☕ And when the work is done, we’re heading to Starbucks on Military for coffee and a little more bee talk.

No classroom. No PowerPoint. Just beekeepers, bees and hands-on learning. 🐝

08/19/2026

TONIGHT — Get Your Bees Ready for Winter!

The honey may still be coming in, but **winter preparation starts now.**

Tonight, experienced BCBA beekeepers Dave Elsen from EF Honey and Jim Sharp, are taking over our August meeting for a practical, beekeeper-to-beekeeper discussion on **Fall & Winter Hive Management.**

They’ll dig into the stuff that can make the difference between a colony that simply goes into winter and one that’s actually **prepared for it** — feeding, Varroa management, winter stores, pulling and cleaning honey supers, wrapping and insulation, ventilation, moisture control, and some of the products and tricks they’ve learned to rely on over the years.

And this won’t just be a lecture. **Bring your questions!** Dave and Jim want this to be a conversation where members can compare methods and learn from each other.

🐝 **MEMBER SHOW & TELL:** Got a feeder, winter setup, insulation method, favorite product or homemade trick that works in your apiary? **Bring it tonight and share it with the club!**

🍯 **PLUS — come early!** Lucas and Liam Ford will kick things off with our **Honey Extraction Demo & Discussion from 5:30–6:30 PM.**

📍 **Green Bay Botanical Garden**
📅 **Tonight — Wednesday, August 19**
🍯 **5:30–6:30 PM — Honey Extraction Demo**
🐝 **6:30 PM — Fall & Winter Hive Management**

**Two great sessions. One night. A whole lot of beekeeping.**

Come with questions — **leave with a game plan for winter!** 🐝❄️

08/19/2026

BCBA Member Spotlight — Dick Sturm at the Wisconsin State Fair!

We love seeing our BCBA members out there representing Wisconsin beekeeping!

Our own Dick Sturm from Dick's Bees joined **Wisconsin Honey Producers Association Booth Manager Michael Dick** for an interview on **Newsradio 620 WTMJ** during the Wisconsin State Fair. Dick has been a longtime member of the Brown County Beekeepers Association and serves as a **Member at Large on our leadership team**.

They talked bees, honey, and some **State Fair sweetness! 🍯🐝**

🎙️ **Want to listen?**
Select the **3:00 PM segment on August 14th — “Brewers Magic, Packers Lessons & State Fair Sweetness”** and jump ahead to about the **24:00-minute mark** for Dick’s interview.

Way to represent BCBA and Wisconsin beekeeping, Dick! 👏🐝

08/19/2026

🍯 MEETING BEFORE THE MEETING — HONEY EXTRACTION!

Come early to our August BCBA meeting and see honey extraction from start to finish!

Lucas and Liam Ford, our 2025 BCBA New Beeks of the Year, will demonstrate how to take those beautiful capped frames and turn them into fresh honey. 🐝🍯

They’ll walk members through the extraction process, equipment, and a few tips they’ve learned along the way.

Perfect for new beekeepers getting ready for their first harvest — or anyone who wants to see how others do it.

🍯 Come early, ask questions, and see honey extraction in action!