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ocba - [ocba] Anyone Take a Peek this Weekend?

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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: Lewis Cauble <lewis AT hivebody.com>
  • To: NC Beekeepers Orange County <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] Anyone Take a Peek this Weekend?
  • Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:00:09 -0500

I rolled around on Saturday and Sunday to try to get a feel for how the bees were holding up. I tried to over winter some nucs on screened bottom boards this year and was curious to see how they were doing. So far so good, but I would feel much better if we had some warm weather and some red maples coming on. A few of the clusters are dangerously small. So far I have lost 3 out of 41 nucs and I expect a couple more will perish if the weather doesn't turn soon. Not all of the nucs are on screened bottom boards. I have also lost 2 of 10 colonies that were wintering in 10 frame hive bodies. One was a single deep, the other was a deep and a medium. I also have another single deep that I moved to a nuc yesterday to try to salvage. Very small cluster. Plenty of food, but not enough bees. This hive swarmed very late in the season last year so no surprises there. The two full size colonies that I lost were not monitored or treated for mites in the fall. I believe one of them probably cast a late swarm and I suspect the other one was a victim of the mites. Hard to say. All in all I'd say things are going as expected. I have also had mouse problems this year so I'll be more vigilant about using reducers in the future.

Some warm weather would ease my worried mind. My nucs were probably adequately prepared for a normal winter where we would see the red maples offering a bit of pollen in early February. At this point, I am concerned that the small clusters in the nucs are going to have a hard time ramping up when the weather does decide to cooperate. I'm not too concerned about my 10 frame stuff that I monitored and treated as needed in the fall.

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and take what comes.

What are you folks seeing so far?

Lewis




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