McHenry County News FRE
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11512 N. 2nd ST. • MACHESNEY PARK, IL 61115 • (815) 654-4850 • www.McHenrycountynewspaper.com Display Advertising & Classifieds: 815-654-4850 • Circulation: 815-654-4854 • E-mail:McHenrynews@rvpublishing.com
Volume 6 Issue 45
NOVEMBER 3, 2016
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Beekeeper Larry Krengel pulls a frame out of the bee hive to check the honey and the bees.
PHOTOS BY
Anne Eickstadt CORRESPONDENT
“Honey bees, by nature, are not normally aggressive. However, in the fall, everyone is stocking up for the winter and honey bees will steal honey from other hives. The honey bees become very defensive.” LARRY KRENGAL, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE NORTHERN ILLINOIS BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION
The bees are filling the honeycomb in this frame with honey.
Cub Love in Marengo By Anne Eickstadt, CORRESPONDENT
By Anne Eickstadt, CORRESPONDENT
“Honey bees, by nature, are not normally aggressive. However, in the fall, everyone is stocking up for the winter and honey bees will steal honey from other hives. The honey bees become very defensive,” says Larry Krengal, Vice President of the Northern Illinois Beekeepers Association. Doug Hawthorne, also of NIBA, says, “Beekeeping is popular. Since I have been a member, the club has gone from 40 to over 180 members.” “The popularity of beekeeping has zoomed up,” Krengal tells me. “Classes that used to have seven or eight students now hold twenty-five or thirty. I started beekeeping twenty years ago. There were only 15002000 beekeepers in the United States then. Ten years ago there were about 900. Now there are over 3000. The number has tripled in the last ten years. There are many more beekeepers today.” “Having more beekeepers is not useful. Having more good beekeepers is useful,” Krengal continues. “People that avoid interacting with bees end up with the bees getting diseases and the honey goes bad. Mites introduced, inadvertently, to the U.S. are a disease vector. They convey viruses. Bees don’t survive all by themselves anymore since that time.” “You have to be a part of what is going on to be successful. We need more ‘hands on’ beekeepers. People that enjoy spending time with bees. People who enjoy nature and being a part of nature,” Krengal says. “The best time to start beekeeping is in January. Figure out what kind of hive you want, find a source for bees, and take a class at McHenry County College.” (Krengal teaches beekeeping at MCC) Classes begin the first week of February.” “In this part of the country, honey bees need about eighty pounds of honey to last through the winter,” says Krengal. “I get the surplus – about sixty pounds per colony, more or less across the state of Illinois. Honey bees typically make about one hundred twenty pounds of honey each year. The trick is to make them think they need more. The queen will begin to produce more worker bees to make more honey.” “Many bees will die as winter approaches so that the food supply will last until spring. By February there are about 15,000 bees per hive. Naturally, queens begin laying more eggs in February. In March, when there is
more pollen available, the queen revs up even more. In July, there are about 50,000 bees per hive,” Krengal tells me. “You get stung, but not a lot,” says Hawthorne. “I have six hives and only get stung about a dozen times a year. It is usually the beekeeper’s fault.” “Beekeepers, as a group, have less arthritis than others,” Krengal adds. He cites information about bee venom therapy which also helps with auto-immune issues, MS and Lupus. “We now have a beekeeping supply store in Harvard,” Hawthorne tells me. “The ‘Harvard Eggs, Feed & Produce’ also has knowledgeable staff. The ‘Big R’ in McHenry and ‘Farm & Fleet’ in Woodstock recently added beekeeping supplies.” For further information on beekeeping, visit www. nibainfo.org.
Krengel keeps his beehives in an isolated area on the edge of a vineyard between Marengo and Woodstock.
The Chicago Cubs are in the World Series. Hooray! The last time the Cubs made it this far, one of Marengo’s own was a member of the team. Joe Misiak of Dunright Auto Repair in Marengo decided to honor Carl “Lundy” Lundgren for the occasion. “I heard they had a plaque for him out there at the baseball field. Yesterday morning we went out and found it,” Misiak says. “I put flowers on his grave. Last night I decided to go out there and listen to the game. He couldn’t go to the game, so I brought the game to him. I couldn’t get hold of a transistor radio, so I used my cell phone.” Carl “Lundy” Lundgren played baseball with the Chicago Cubs for eight years, from 1902 to 1909. His record shows 91 wins and 55 losses. His best season with the Cubs was in 1907 when he pitched 207 innings without a single home run. He had studied the opponents well enough that he could pitch to their weaknesses. He also pitched seven shutouts. Born in Marengo on February 16, 1880, Lundgren learned to play baseball on the field across from the Marengo City Cemetery on East Street. A plaque by the field commemorates Lundgren’s achievements. Following high school, Lundgren left Marengo to attend the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana in 1898. He played football in the Halfback and fullback positions for the Fighting Illini and pitched baseball for the university from 1899 to 1902 when he became the team captain. The Chicago Cubs watched Lundgren pitch during an exhibition game they were playing against the U of I baseball team. Upon Lundgren’s graduation with a degree in Civil Engineering, the Cubs signed him up. He debuted as their pitcher on June 19, 1902 in Cincinnati where he made a good first showing. Lundgren earned a 91-55 (.623) record and a career earned run average of 2.42. The Cubs won three straight pennants in 1906, 1907, and 1908 and the World Series Championships in 1907 and 1908. Shortly thereafter, Lundgren declared his retirement and returned home to Marengo. After a couple tries at continuing a career in baseball, Lundgren began a second career as the head baseball coach at the University of Michigan. From there he coached the Fighting Illini baseball team at his alma mater, the University of Illinois. Both teams were consistent winners under Lundgren’s coaching. In 1934, Lundgren suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 54. He is buried in the family plot in the Marengo City Cemetery. “His aunt still goes out to put a bat and a baseball on his gravesite,” Misiak tells me. “Sometime this morning, someone placed a Cubs pumpkin on his grave.” More information on Marengo’s native son and Chicago Cubs pitcher Carl “Lundy” Lundgren can be found at the Society for American Baseball Research website www.sabr.org. You can also find information on Lundgren at the McHenry County Historical Museum. You can ask at www.mchenrycountyhistory.org.