Guilfordbeekeepers.org

I put heated water out in my bee water jar awhile ago--birds visit it whether bees do or not. I just saw a mocking bird getting a drink and watched a wren hopping from landing board to landing board snacking on recently deceased bees. Spring can't come soon enough for me.

It is 35F with a slight breeze and 3-4 bees are out collecting pollen substitute. Brood in need or some Russian genetics?

I got my dry pollen substitute out by my nectarometer on December 23rd this year. The bees are definitely interested in it. So far, my bees appear to be in better shape than they were this time last year. The weather so far this winter does not seem to be pointing to an earlier red maple bloom.

I tend to replace older dark frames that have some pollen stored in them if they are over 5 years old. I don't have freezer space for them to possibly keep the pollen in good shape. If I don't keep them in a freezer, they need to be stored with Paramoth to protect from waxmoth. The pollen won't be g...

If the weather is warm enough to put those frames into an 8 frame setup, I would put the other 4 in right away so that you avoid burr comb issues by violating bee space. To start, I would have the active frames together and in the center. If temperatures are still cool, I would consider using a nuc-...

I've gone with the 37/39F based on the Q&A sheet Dadant has published for years. I don't really know at what point it is too cool for the vapors to properly spread within the hive, but since I'm not all that fond of the cold and at 37/39F, few foragers are out and about, I've gone with that. I d...

Happy Bee New Year 2024. I put sugar bricks or sugar and pollen substitute bricks on all of my remote hives over the last 2 days. It was too cool to do serious exams, but the populations in the hives looked good and bees had either completely or largely consumed sugar bricks I put on just short of a...

Check out the GCBA website homepage. We have posted the pdf version of an early season splits presentation given at a recent meeting we had. It is under the "Interesting Sites/Presentations" section of the homepage. Vern Allen is working on putting together an Intermediate Beekeeping cours...

I did a bee presentation with bees on Friday, the latest I have ever done. I had to put bees in the observation hive on Wednesday when it was warm, and did not get them back in their hive until this afternoon. I used a nuc with a late July swarm/abscond. The nuc was not massively strong, but ok. The...

My belief is that the bees will consume the brick before they uncap honey. Both require some water for them to be able consume, but unless tightly clustered and unable to reach the bricks, I would think using the bricks would be easier and preferred by the bees. I don't have definitive evidence for ...

A little less than a month ago, I put sugar bricks on all of my hives away from the house. These contain about 1.66lbs of sugar each. When I checked yesterday, all bricks in all hives had been consumed. I added more bricks. I am going to increase production and increase the frequency of checking sto...

Judy Faircloth asked me to share the news of Emerson's passing. He and Norman were long time beekeeping friends and members of GCBA. I've included links to a 2005 Greensboro News & Record article for those GCBA members who did not get the chance to know Emerson. https://greensboro.com/former-loc...

A lot of the time, you've got to watch that they don't put sugar water in every cell where a queen might lay. I wouldn't worry too much about that where you had no resources in the hive to start with. I'd rather have them need to clear some laying space than have a strong colony starve.

The Guilford County Beekeepers Association will offer the Beginner Beekeeping Course on the following dates: Thursday, January 09 Thursday, January 16 Thursday, January 23 Thursday, January 30 Thursday, February 06 Thursday, February 13 Thursday, February 20 (optional question & answer session/r...

The mystery deepens. . . .I got a call this morning from one of our beekeepers looking for a queen. He had checked with Beez Needz and they did not have any. They knew of the Jacobs Home for Wayward Bees and my efforts to overwinter late absconds for emergency queens and late season bee presentation...

I'm glad you posted this; I've run into a few hives with absolutely no brood. The hives appear healthy and calm. I have spotted the queen in some and in others I did not. Pharmacyman's post on Varroa may contain another example of a broodless colony. I spoke with Mark Case on Saturday and asked if h...

I think label is 1 gram per brood chamber, but studies indicate 4 grams of OA total is more effective than 1 or 2.

If you have a shim, you could add small pieces above on the top bars of your top super. This would let you check it quickly to either add more if consumed or remove it if it becomes a feeder for SHB larvae.

My opinions--I would remove the deep if it is totally empty. I would treat with OAV since it is broodless. Your bees may be bringing in mites from a colony that has queen issues and is an object of your bees' robbing efforts. After that, I would keep an eye on the landing board; are the bees flying ...

I just checked on a small swarm/nuc that recently re-queened. The new queen is laying, but the population of bees is down significantly. I removed the top nuc box after finding and crushing over 100 SHB in the empty cells from comb in that box. I'm hoping that with less area to patrol, bee populatio...