Guilfordbeekeepers.org

When do ya'll replace foundation? I have replaced so much this fall/winter that I am tired of it. Does color matter? I read somewhere it doesn't. The foundation in the picture is not even 4 years old![attachment=0]20241223_152922.jpg

I found The Dana Stahlman powerpoint on a vertical split very helpful. Thank you. He talks about removing from the mother hive two frames of eggs, larvae, brood with resources, one frame of honey and pollen, and one frame of drawn brood. That is 4 frames total. I have 8-frame boxes. When do I add th...

I am seeing conflicting information on the minimum treatment temperature for OAV vaporization. This article (2nd study) states that efficacy is independent of temperature: https://frankthebeeman.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NJBA-volume-34-issue-2-pages-21-23-1.pdf Other places and studies indicate...

February will be here before we know it. What is the best way for me to learn (step by step) how to do these splits? Any classes involving splits coming up? Demonstration at our January GCBA meeting? Video links to share?

Yes, as Jacobs said I am in this broodless club too. It seems to be widespread from these posts. I have not used any Formic Pro but both of my two remaining hives were broodless upon my October inspection. I looked for the queen, but there were so many bees on each frame of each box that I could hav...

Thanks, I have decided to check and put that box back on the hive...it has so many bees.

I have an OA vaporizer wand and OA. How much OA should I use per hive?

The hive with the deep and two mediums, no problem. I removed the empty deep (drawn out empty frames) and set it out in front of it's hive. By sunset all the bees in the deep went into the hive. No problem. The next hive I inspected had a deep and 3 mediums. I found in the deep and one of the medium...

I just did my final inspection and I'm not seeing any pollen stored on any frames. Should I add pollen patties this time of year?

I just inspected one of my last two remaining hives to test for Varroa. This is the one with no mites in July. There were 25 mites today or 8.3%. I was looking for brood frames from which to collect my sample and found absolutely no brood on any frames. Does that sound like a problem this time of ye...

Of the two hives that were being robbed, I lost one to robbing. I was a day or two late taking down the dead out and getting the frames into the freezer, so when I pulled them out of the freezer today I initially thought the frozen larvae I saw that had emerged from the frames was wax moth larvae, t...

Of the two hives that were being attacked, I ended up losing one. It may have not been queenright and/or was weak. When I closed them up, I taped up the vent hole in the inner cover, but the robbers seemed to be getting in around the tape. About the time that all was lost for the hive, I noticed tha...

Dang I've got one that keeps coming around. Do I need to take any action?

Yesterday there were no robbers so I opened both openings on the robbing screen. Hope I taped up the hole on the inner cover well. When I opened the larger opening at the landing board, the opening was clogged with dead bees. I used my tool to drag as many out as I could and bees were coming in and ...

I hope that absconding or swarming is not the case. We will see. They have been well cared for, have room but not too much, are under mite treatment now (I will remove Apivar strips later this week), SHBs have not been a problem and they have resources. There are no robbers today, so I opened the sm...

I didn't know to expect robbing bees this late in the season, but i sure have them. I noticed activity first on Friday and immediately shut openings on robbing screens and vents were taped. They have gone after the two swarms I captured this past Spring which surprised me because they are strong hiv...

I have 3 backyard hives and want to move to 6. I want to buy a vaporizer to use this winter. Prices vary widely. I read one person saying you want one that doesn't get the OA too hot, that it needs a temp regulator?? Does anyone have any advice about buying an OA vaporizer for a relatively new beeke...

I understand it produces a very dark, thick honey almost like Molasses. I wonder if after he plants that 3/4 acre, you could get a second harvest too? One in the fall that is made of just buckwheat honey? If that happens, I would like to buy a jar. I would like to see what it tastes like.

In July I bought a pound of buckwheat seed, cleared a place in our garden, spread the seed, and just watered it once. That's all the care I gave it. It came up and bloomed in no time. My bees are going after this nectar with a vengeance. I won't harvest any buckwheat honey, but just did this to prov...

Thanks for the input, Guys! I'm on the swarm call list. I believe I'll stay on that list and in between now and spring also learn more about how to do a spring split.

I currently have just 3 hives but would like to increase that number to 5 or 6. I wanted to ask, when you were new how did you increase your hive numbers? I'm not opposed to buying packages or nucs, but I was wondering if a fall split, spring split, or catching swarms next spring would be the best a...