Last night, I spoke for the Back-to-Basics bee club. They have a thriving group of beekeepers that meet in the Iowa State Agricultural Extension building in Oskaloosa. It's a great facility for them, and it was a pretty full house. My topic for the evening was queen-related hive management. We went over some fundamentals of queen biology, how to successfully requeen laying workers, and some characteristics of the various races of bees that are important to know about when making queen purchases. The group had some great questions throughout. Afterwards, one of the club's officers brought out a binder that looked like this: Evidently, someone printed off the entire blog last year, and then placed it in the bee club's library. It was great to see that someone found these posts worth keeping around. If anyone is looking for a bee club to join in Iowa, here is a link with contact information for several. Depending on where you live, there are often a couple within driving distance. Click here for Iowa bee clubs. Beekeepers are quite good at learning from each other, so it's a great for beekeepers new and old to convene at these clubs if it fits in their schedules. I wish I could make it to the East Central Iowa Beekeepers more often, but I drop in whenever possible.