Guilfordbeekeepers.org

reedyfork texted me about a swarm on West Market Street. I collected about a 4lb swarm. When I got home, I had an email with a picture of a swarm off Westridge Road. The next email from the folks was that the bees had left. The time from the first email until the second saying they were gone was abo...

Today is the first day I can confidently say there has been scouting activity at my bait hives. It started as 1 or 2 bees a little over an hour ago and has built up to 15 or 20 bees. I don't know if they will decide to move in, but it is encouraging to see some activity.

It seems like a high risk proposition to me, especially until weather is generally warm enough for good mating flights. I haven't read/researched the issue, but given the already high risk proposition of hive reproduction by swarming, I don't know the success rate of re-queening by very early swarmi...

Holly in Bloom_IMG_0961.jpg This holly at the front of my house is in bloom. The southern exposure and nearness to red brick must be giving it enough extra warmth to start early. All of the other hollys of all varieties in the front yard are still in the bud stage. Maybe we will get lucky with the ...

Lots of drones, no swarm mode in hives for me, yet. I did get a short video from a member of this forum showing what appears to be a move-in in a bait hive he put up earlier this week. I have asked him to post in the swarms/removals category.

Give them 1 medium to start and keep an eye on it. You can either give them a 2nd when needed, or do like I do when getting comb drawn--take out individual drawn frames as ready and replace with frame and foundation to get drawn.

If you haven't been feeding sugar water and you have real honey, why not harvest it? If your goal is to get comb drawn, consider removing the honey from the medium super and putting in undrawn comb. Add a top feeder and feed 1:1 sugar water. I would not put gallons on at a time, but maybe a quart at...

The bees should easily be able to draw out 10 medium frames if there is any flow at all this year. Assuming you are using 10 frame equipment, you may want to start by taking 5 medium frames out and putting 5 undrawn frames in-alternating drawn and undrawn. Keep an eye on this super and watch the pro...

I went through my bees at Brown Summit yesterday. They are building up and one hive was extremely strong. They weren't building burr comb in shims and they weren't in swarm mode yet. I hope to move some swarms there if we have a good swarm season this year.

I went through my hives at the house this afternoon. They are strong and building but are not in swarm mode yet. I moved queens and brood down and checkerboarded with open drawn comb and capped brood frames above the queen. I moved a lot of the feed frames to my top supers but left honey and pollen ...

The red maple behind me is blooming and others in the neighborhood have probably been in bloom for 2 or 3 days. Today is the first day where large amounts, perhaps a majority of the pollen coming in is the olive green colored pollen.

I saw my first drones flying this afternoon. They were returning to the strongest hive at the house.

I saw my first drone outside the hive at my house. It was fully formed, but unable to fly. It won't be long before drones will be coming out when workers are doing orientation flights.

I'm still seeing buds on the red maples around me but I am not seeing blooms. My bees were bringing in tons of pollen today and other foragers were flying in an out like there is a nectar source somewhere. I checked my Brown Summit hives yesterday and only one had a small amount of burr comb in the ...

The whole winter period this year seems to have been closer to "normal" from a temperature standpoint. I need to get busy repairing old equipment and cleaning up the old frames and stacks of supers sitting on stands in my back yard. Having more sun and earlier sun there makes it easier for...

I think having to clean up in shims is a good thing as long as you don't let it go to the point where large amounts of wax and brood have to be removed. It means you have a strong enough colony to consume the sugar bricks you gave them and that they are in spring build up mode. They are producing wa...

Keith was kind enough to make his meeting area available for last night's meeting. I was pleasantly surprised that about 45 people showed up. A few were from Randolph County beekeepers, but most were from GCBA. We hope to be back in our regular meeting place next month. I plan to do an in person ins...

My neighbor's flowering quince is blooming, but still has a way to before being fully in bloom. I also have speedwell blooming in my yard. The red maples around me are budding, but not in bloom yet. A tree across the street has blooms like a maple, but I am not seeing red in the blooms. I went throu...

Bait Hive Post_IMG_0940.jpg I had tree work done last week, and a volunteer tulip poplar that was in a bad place and got too big for me to deal with had to go. I enjoyed watching it grow but didn't realize how old and large they needed to be before they started blooming. I had the tree people top t...

Not a great photo but you can get an idea of the shape of blooms, the bark of the tree, and the size.