Guilfordbeekeepers.org

I have been fighting the same problem. Two weeks ago, I found what I believe to be the parent colony, and began treating it with a spectracide pellet specifically formulated for ants. (sprinkle it on, water it in, late at night in my case) They are far enough away from the hive (50' downhill) that I...

I worked from home today, and am I ever glad that I did. Around 11am my biggest hive cast a swarm. They have filled five 8-frame mediums and the bees are working on the 6th. The queen was laying as high as the fourth box, with >4 frames of brood in all four bottom boxes. This particular queen is ver...

So far 2015 has been a year of crazy travel for me. I returned home last week after 7 weeks on the road, during which time I have spent a total of 5 nights at home. I was pretty concerned about the bees, since I have been gone so long without the ability to check on them. On Wednesday, there was a l...

I caught my first swarm a couple of weeks ago, and thought I would give a quick update. My wife called in the mid-afternoon to tell me "there are bees everywhere in the backyard, I think you might have a swarm". I had gone through the hives two days before, and did a really thorough inspec...

I had a couple of minutes, so I thought I would post an update. Monday, Marc Stadiem came by to help inspect the problem hive. Here is what we saw: -No queen. We could not find the queen even after checking three times each. -Plenty of capped brood. A small amount (playing card size) of younger broo...

I think I've had <12 dead bees in mine over the last week. Of course, both of mine have leaks, which is a whole other problem.

Those queen cells look old. Have you looked straight in them to see if there are actually larva or eggs in them? Is it possible that they are old queen cells that came with the nuc? They have brood and royal jelly in them. I have seen that clearly now twice. Rob, I will contact Tate's. How should I...

OK, I went back into the hives today to get a frame of brood from the good hive to give to the suffering hive. Here is an example of the laying pattern of my italian queen: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ckyifj6t3tdlacn/2014-04-24%2018.00.28%20HDR.jpg Not bad, eh? I took the outer most frame that had a g...

Heard back from Tate. They are going to fix it, but it might take a little bit of time. Janice asked me to add a frame of brood from the other hive. I understand the logic, and think it makes sense. I almost wish these queen cells were on different frames. I have two nucs that I could split them int...

I saw a few open brood on one frame. There were developed to the same extent that the larva in the queen cells were. I didn't see anything younger/smaller. They were fanning a lot. I would say they were not calm. I'm not sure how to describe them though. Nervous would be a good description, in compa...

I worked yesterday until 9:30pm, so today I decided to leave the office today before the weather changed. I used that time to take a closer look at my bees. I went into hive 2 first. The three new frames were about halfway drawn out. I started to worry about the queen as I worked my way across the f...

OK, got my answer today. Hive number one had foragers. They started later, and stopped earlier than hive number two, and only about half of the number. At the time of writing, almost no bees are flying to/from hive one, but hive two is still bringing in pollen and nectar. I checked on the level of s...

Rob came over yesterday in the early afternoon and we got the bees into the hives. Having Rob there was a great help. He had to keep me on task, because of the weather. I wanted to look at the bees, and examine everything, but with the cool temperatures and a little wind, we had to move fast. Thanks...

I put up a tarp over the nucs, and opened them up. Something that was curious to me is that one of the carboard nuc boxes had a screened bottom, and the other didn't.

Hey Folks, I am picking up two nucs from Tates tonight. :lol: One is a Wayne's, the other an italian. (Was hoping for two Wayne's). The first question, How late in the morning should I wait before putting them in hives tomorrow? The second questions, anyone got time to help? I think I understand wha...

Hi All,

I found this article, and didn't see it already in the forum. Pages 16-17 show a list of plants which are useful for bees by month. I think this is most helpful for the July-August time frame.

http://pollinator.org/PDFs/Guides/South ... 5FINAL.pdf

Great video with lots of good information. Thanks!

I ordered lemongrass oil on Monday, and it arrived in the mail today, so at lunch I drove home, and put out a couple of cotton balls. I placed one in a tree about 10 feet above my hive, and one under the outer cover. Since the weather was beautiful, I sat outside on my back deck and enjoyed the suns...

Thanks Wally! I had forgot that I could use lemongrass to help with swarm captures. I will definitely get another top and bottom board. I think I am also going to build a few medium nucs to have on hand as well. Even if I don't need them this spring, I will need the soon enough. I want to overwinter...

Hey Everyone, First, I would like to thank Rob and the rest of the crew who put on the class this year. It was very well done, and I look forward to the monthly meetings. I wish I could have attended this months meeting, but had to be out of town for work. Now, the reason for the post. Since this is...