Good afternoon Beekeepers,
We have been contacted by Jamie Jensen, who is the superintendent at the Bee & Honey exhibit at the State Fair. He is looking for the following. If you are able to help, please reach out to Jamie directly.
- CAN THE STATE FAIR BORROW SOME BEES? Greetings from the State Fair superintendent (Jamie Jensen). We have a big “ask” of you. We have five demonstration hives but they are not populated until just before the fair. They stay with us for the 12 days of the fair, and then are returned. We are looking for someone to provide us with five frames of brood, five frames of honey, and five queens. These will be displayed to over 1 million fair goers over the 12 day run of the fair. We would come out with the demonstration hives and have the frames installed, then put on the plexiglass to encase them until the end of the fair. Let him know if you can help.
- DO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT BEES? We have a bee enclosure at the fair that has a full 10 frame hive of live bees. Six times a day we give a 15 minute talk on bees to the public. It is well received. Would you like to give the talk? If so, please contact Jamie to discuss. You can give one talk or all six for the day. You also get a free pass to the fair.
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They are needing some wax. They make candles at 10 and 11 every morning. This is handled by employees but if there is a candle maker out there we would make space for them to show candle making.
- Do you have excess wax that you could donate to the Minnesota State Fair? We are in need of about 8 pounds of wax to make candles, which we do every day of the Fair, at 10:00 and 11:00 am.
- Do you have candle making experience that you would like to share? Come to the Fair and be one of our volunteer presenters. Jamie will send you an entrance ticket.
Lastly, we have the presentations from the enclosure. This is for experienced beekeepers only. We offer it at 10:30, 12:30, 2:30, 4:30, and 6:30.
There is a bee enclosure with a full 10 frame Langstroth. Every 2 hours, starting at 10:30 am, a beekeeper will need to open the hive and show the collected fair goers the inside of the hive, including the brood, honey, workers and drones, and, especially, the queen. It is a 15 minute presentation at your discretion. We do not use a script.
There are volunteer opportunities for honey extraction (only three spots left at the time I was provided the links) and bee and honey interpreters. Here are the links:
We are always happy to have volunteers. If you want to volunteer to help before the fair have them contact Jamie.
Contact Info:
Jamie Jensen
651-633-5010
JensenJamie@proton.me