Guilfordbeekeepers.org

I used Apiguard last year and am using it this year on my biggest hive (the others don't warrant treatment). I may have missed the instruction about leaving the screen bottom covered because I've left it open each of the times I've used it. My bees didn't beard, but the queen refused to lay in the p...

Great article in the paper this morning, Rob. You represented the Guilford County beekeeping community well!

That was the advice I got. I'll let you know if I ever get a chance!

I had the same thing happen this spring. I had a really strong hive last year with a queen that was going great guns. I split the hive in March with hopes of having her gear up another strong hive. I gave her a couple of frames of brood, nurse bees, honey, pollen - but she never got going. I had to ...

Have you sold both of your nucs?

I use cardboard, starter wood (for our fires), shavings for pet beds, dried leaves - anything I can find to get it going. I'm sure there's cedar in the shavings which might be the biggest culprit. -Also in the starter wood.
I'll try the torch.
Thanks!

How do you clean out the black stuff that is stuck to the lid of the smoker? I don't know if it's creostote or tar, but it's making my lid really hard to open. I usually have to light several matches and warm up the outer edge of the lid before I can get it to open. When it's cool, the stuff is real...

Good news is that we've got a couple of really nice days coming up and no freezing weather in the forecast. That will help everything keep blooming and growing without setbacks for nectar and pollen.

Thanks, Rob. I am planning on moving the queen to the new hive and letting the mother hive requeen itself. I'm hoping they'll make a good queen with the eggs left behind. I figure that's 21 days - then another week to 10 days to mate and return. By that time there should be lots of drones flying and...

Is it too early to make a split? I have a packed hive with lots of capped brood, larva, LOTS of drone brood, some drones walking around on the brood, multiple open swarm cells, a queen, lots of pollen and nectar, and left over honey. I'd like to split them before they swarm...

So if one wanted to acquire some BT for their hives, might there be a local source? A little birdie suggested to me that there might be......

So exactly what is BT?

I lost one of my 3. The one I lost was my weak hive that I've been fearful weren't going to make it. I couldn't get them to take sugar syrup in the fall, they wouldn't take dry sugar in the winter, and wouldn't touch pollen patties either. The only thing they'd eat was when I poured pure honey on to...

Hey everyone - there's an article in today's Greensboro News and Record on the last page of the life section entitled "Applications sought for beekeepers license plate." The Franklin County Beekeepers Association has designed a specialty license plate to promote awareness of the plight of ...

I've been using the mountain camp feeding method with the dry sugar on newspaper this winter. My two strong hives have taken to it like crazy. when you get close to the hive, it sounds like sleet with them eating through the newspaper and sugar. My weak hive has no interest in eating anything. I fin...

I stopped by on Friday to see what they had. They had a box with a "complete bee hive " in it. It looked like 1 super, a flat lid, couldn't tell about the bottom board or the frames. They also had as separate items veils, bee brushes, smokers, and Beekeeping for dummies and The Backyard Be...

I've got one very similar to that, too. It's a hive that swarmed and requeened themselves this summer, and then had a serious mite problem. I've treated them for mites 3 times with Apiguard to get the mites down. I've got a very small amount of spotty brood only on a few frames, but when I checked t...

OK - thanks, Wally!

In the mountains this summer, I noticed that honeybees were all over 3 large white hydrangea bushes. However, I don't know what variety of hydrangea this is. I want to get one for my yard because that could be another food source for them in mid summer. I know the ones in the mountains weren't oak l...

I always assume the bees know a whole lot more about what they're doing and why they're doing it than I do, but I have to ask about this. I checked 2 of my 3 hives today. In both hives, the top boxes (3 medium supers in each hive) had the most brood, bees, and food stores in it. The middle box had s...