Guilfordbeekeepers.org

I'm thinking of a scenario where a beekeeper is not interested in (or able to) expand their apiary, has no interest in selling bees, and therefore does not use splitting colonies as a means to control swarming. Would it be possible to find a colony in swarm prep mode, locate and pinch the current qu...

Well, I think I spoke too soon about my own colonies. I checked my home hives on Thursday afternoon, and the strongest one did have at least one uncapped, charged swarm cell with larvae and jelly. I removed two frames of brood to boost a weaker colony and replaced with empty drawn comb in the hopes ...

I just got an unverified report of a swarm here in the center of Greensboro on Thursday. Unfortunately, the neighbor just contacted me last night about it... I assume they are long gone by now, but I do plan to go check if we get a break in the rain later today.

My bees definitely seem to be weeks behind compared to the past few years, so as soon as folks begin to see charged swarm cells, I would love to hear about it! So far, I am not seeing any real swarming preparation or swarm cells, even in my strongest packed colonies. I am certainly seeing tons of fl...

All of my hives overwintered this year in 2, 10-frame mediums. I put a deep box with heavily waxed black plastic foundations (only) on most of them Feb 10. As of the other day, all but a few weaker colonies had started drawing out those foundations. The strongest 3 or 4 colonies had almost fully dra...

Long story, but I put deeps with new heavily-waxed plastic foundations on all my hives on Feb. 10. They still have plenty of honey, and I am supplemental feeding with Hive Alive fondant (no liquid syrup yet). I thought it was worth a shot to see if they'd consider drawing them out, and maybe I'd get...

Is it possible for drones to overwinter in a hive? I thought not, but I did a thorough check of some hives on Monday and found plentiful numbers of mature-looking drones on frames. I guess it's possible they are this year's drones, but that means those eggs would have been laid AT LEAST 24+ days ago...

Is it possible for drones to overwinter in a hive? I thought not, but I did a thorough check of some hives on Monday and found plentiful numbers of mature-looking drones on frames. I guess it's possible they are this year's drones, but that means those eggs would have been laid AT LEAST 24+ days ago...

I stopped by Cooperative Extension on Thursday to see the tree in bloom. It is almost certainly a gnarly old red maple (not a silver or sugar maple), and the bees were certainly working it! I haven't seen any others blooming to this extent in the area, but would love to hear what you folks are seein...

As Wally suggested, I took the opportunity yesterday to peek in all my hives, check weights, and make general observations. In 2 of my 19 hives, they are now starting to build comb inside the feeding shim (mainly drone comb). In fact, one was already laid up with eggs! They have definitely been burn...

I am super-curious to know what tree that is at the cooperative extension office! I can't think of what else might be in bloom this time of year... Like Jacobs, I also peeked in on all my hives recently and made the same observations. Both in urban Greensboro and rural Summerfield, all my colonies a...

I would agree with Jacobs. It's always been my understanding that we have sufficient natural pollen around here during January/February (primarily from camellia, mahonia, and red maple), and plenty of warm days for flying and foraging, for normal build-up and brood production. My impression is the m...

It was exactly this time last year that I saw red maples blooming and bees working like crazy bringing in maple pollen (and apparently nectar). This was also the time I discovered many of my feeding shims already filling up with new wax and drone comb! As far as I can tell this has been a different ...

My experience is there can always be multiple factors that cause this aggression (dearth, pests, disease pressure), but in most cases a simple re-queening is the solution. This has worked for me with several similar situations - you just have to be patient though as you wait for the new queen's offs...

If no nucs are easily available, at this point in the season you might be best off storing the hardware and robbed out frames in the freezer and planning to utilize them for splits and supers next spring. You can treat, feed, and build up your remaining colony through the rest of the year and winter...

I decided at the beginning of my beekeeping adventure to run all mediums. At the time, I thought the advantage of being able to move frames around wherever I wanted was going to be a great advantage. What I've discovered is that my hive inspections and swarm prevention attempts have suffered because...

I'm not an expert in this yet, but I would say that I'm seeing sumac and clover still blooming, and my bees (at least today now that the sun is back out) are purposeful and actively bringing in "something". Yes, they are wash-boarding. And no, I don't have hive weights or anything to back ...

My best colonies here in Greensboro will typically produce a 5 gal bucket of honey (50-60 lbs?). I started out following the "leave one medium super of honey for winter" approach, but have definitely switched over to harvesting all honey, putting a wet super back on after extracting, feede...

So here's what I decided to do. Rather than try to treat chemically at this stage, I instead found the queen and made a split from this hive (and another like it). This achieves four things for me: 1. Allows for a brood break to knock back the mite population 2. Reduces any swarming impulse they mig...

Absolutely! I suggest putting them in some kind of plastic bag though, because they will definitely drip and make a sticky mess if you're not careful.