<b>By DOUG GRAVES<br>
Ohio Correspondent</b></p><p>

LOVELAND, Ohio - The rumor is out that there’s a shortage of bees in southwest Ohio. But don’t tell that to the increasing number of Buckeye state beekeepers.<br>
Ohio is home to 3,300 to 3,500 beekeepers, most of whom operate from their own backyards. Many of them will converge at the Oasis Confer-ence Center in Loveland on Saturday, March 29 for the annual Southwestern Ohio Beekeeper School.<br>
“Ohio’s claim is to be a good beekeeper state, rather than a good bee state, because to have the number of beekeepers we’ve got makes us one of the largest beekeeper states in the country,” said Dr. James Tew, who will be the keynote speaker at this year’s gathering. “In terms of honey production, the northeast and northwest corners of the state are the most prosperous.”<br>
Tew, an associate professor of entomology from Ohio State University’s Honey Bee Laboratory in Wooster, will bring this message to the school: Modern Beekeeping - New Ways of Doing Old Things.<br>
“In ways beekeeping has changed a lot and in some ways beekeeping hasn’t changed at all,” he said. “If you take a beekeeper from, say, 1948 and compare him to a modern day beekeeper, there would be a lot of similarities from then to now. But there have been some changes, and some older beekeepers nowadays haven’t kept up with what’s new out there.”<br>
According to Tew, there are more than 300 different types of honey in the United States. According to the National Honey Board, Americans consume more than 400 pounds of the sweet-tasting food annually. Last year, though, beekeepers in Ohio watched helplessly as their hives dwindled due to several weather-related factors.<br>
“Beekeepers need to question everything,” Tew said. “Just because your granddad did something one way doesn’t mean it was the proper way to do it. Nowadays we tell people to re-queen their colonies, but in the real world queens are expensive and sometimes they’re not accepted. It’s difficult to get a good bee population and there are more, new things to pick up and try all the time. In addition, we sometimes bully our hives by over-manipulating them. Oftentimes it’s just new ways of doing old things.”<br>
Following Tew’s presentation, attendees can choose to attend many of the one-hour classrooms on beekeeping.<br>
Kim Flottum, editor of Bee Culture, will give advice to those just starting in this hobby, as will Dr. Bob Allen, a Miami County beekeeper. Flottum will also demonstrate how to harvest the honey from the hives.<br>
Greene County beekeeper Mark Egloff will talk about seasonal management of hives, while Andrew Kartal of the Ohio Department of Agriculture will address diseases and pests of hives.
Phil Craft, apiarist for the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, will talk about honey bee species, races and lines. He’ll also speak about re-queening hives.<br>
Sonya Staffan (a.k.a. The Jam Lady) will show visitors how to make jams and jellies with honey. Sherry Ferrell of the OSU Bee Lab will show tricks to producing items made from wax.<br>
Joe Latshow of Latshaw Apiaries will address queen rearing and the Ohio Queen Rearing Project. He’ll also give an approach to varroa management and control. Highland County beekeeper Jim Higgins will show attendees the lessons in the products of the hive for better health. He’ll also talk about the protocol for bee venom therapy.<br>
For details, call the Warren County Extension office at 513-695-1311.