Guilfordbeekeepers.org

Wally, feel free to join in on this discussion! I was reading old posts on this board. I was looking for when drones were appearing and when people were talking about swarms in years past. Drones have been showing up in mid to late March for some and into April for others. It appears that swarms sta...

It sounds to me like you are doing what I have heard/read you need to be doing to attract swarms, and the rest is going to be up to the bees. Do you keep bees near this swarm lure? I can't place where I read it or heard it, but I recall reading that swarms are attracted to where other bees are locat...

There is still time to register for the Spring meeting in Lumberton. This link should take you to the registration form. If you are a current State member, you can use the online registration. http://www.ncbeekeepers.org/registration.pdf Additional information is available at the State beekeepers si...

I think I am going to differ. My understanding is that K wing is a symptom of tracheal mites. Deformed wing virus with shriveled wings is an indicator of varroa infestation, but when the wing is whole but sticking out at an angle so that the wings look like they are making a "K," that indi...

And if you made it this far on the forum board, go back up to "Just Stuff," open that topic, go to page 3 and about half way down, open up "Study Guide." You will need to read all of the posts in that one for additions/corrections, and then you will need to thank Ski when you see...

You made the same point in another post. I disagreed with you then and still do. We imported bees to the U.S. We imported pests they were not exposed to. We have the ability to treat and allow the bees to adapt to the new threats. Don't we have some obligation to remedy the ills we have brought fort...

If you are new to beekeeping and wondering where to place your hives, current thinking is that you want as much sunlight on them as you can get. If you are in a city that has a bee ordinance, pay attention to your setback requirements and your shadows. For me, February 19th represents the first day ...

As soon as I can start feeding 1:1 sugar water, I will feed my bees the Spring treatment of Fumagilin-B to prevent nosema. I would also feed this to any new package or any nuc unless I knew it had received this. It comes in a small bottle in powdered form and you mix it in the sugar water according ...

I'd like 5 if you've got 'em.

With full sun on the hives and 39°F, the bees were flying to my jar feeder. I popped the top on the hive I was concerned about. The bees had not moved into the top medium super and they have a good amount of stores, so I closed it back up. I feel better about their food situation for the time being.

I'm keeping a close eye on one of my hives. This one has been the most active during the last several warm days. I have been keeping a jar feeder about 30 feet away form the hives to give the bees something to go to, and this hive seems the most enthusiatic. Today I noticed that the snow/slush melte...

I will have new hats at Tuesday night's meeting.

I placed the package orders this morning based on the sign up lists from the club and the class. I had you down on the list. Also, we do have hats on order and I am waiting for them to come in. It should not be too much longer if all goes well.

Probably just a few of the older bees leaving the hive to die. If they did not have deformed wings or k wings (varroa and tracheal mite signs) it sounds like normal attrition to me.

If you are interested in attending the Born & Bred in NC queen rearing workshop this spring you need to get your form completed and mailed in. Word is that applications will be accepted until February 12th. You can get the form by going to the NC Beekeepers reference link on our home page. Click...

Early registration forms and information about the March 5 & 6, 2010 Spring Meeting in Lumberton are available for downloading on the State web site. You can get to it through the link on the left side of our home page for the NC Beekeepers. When you get to the State home page, click on the &quo...

I am now on the site through the Mozilla Firefox web browser. It opens up at full size with everything showing automatically. If I go into the site through AOL I have to go to the upper right hand corner of the Guilford Beekeepers homepage screen and click on the square that enlarges that page to fu...

dfain, Sorry that you lost your hive. Last Winter I had a couple of losses with a small cluster of bees and plenty of stores. Although I had done varroa mite checks, circumstances prevented me from treating until very late in the Fall. I think too many of the late Fall adult bees and too many of the...

Put your ear to the side of the hive and see if you hear buzzing. If not, keep your ear on the hive and knock on the hive a couple of times. If bees are in there that will normally cause them to get louder. If you don't hear anything you may want to look into the hive tomorrow or Friday when the tem...

It looks like Thursday afternoon and Friday afternoon may be good times for a quick check of the hives for food stores and for slapping a pollen patty on above the "cluster." I doubt I will be pulling frames to look for brood since it will be below 60 degrees, but I will chance it that the...