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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: mike johnson <mm AT reddrum.com>
  • To: "Wilson" <infomet AT embarqmail.com>
  • Cc: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] bee conundrum…
  • Date: Tue, 27 May 2014 14:56:48 -0400

I think I'm in the minority here, but I do it for the love of watching the
bee colonies - I couldn't care less about the honey.

I'm trying to get at least a few hives going so that I have some options for
moving around pieces if needed to keep a few strong hives. I'm not sure how
many I have the time to keep up with, but maybe 3-4 possibly a couple more
once I get them where they take care of themselves somewhat. At least that
is my hope! I live in the country with lots and lots of farms nearby, my
yard, and a couple of my neighbors yards are full of flowers as well so they
have it pretty good around here.

Trying to learn the details about beekeeping appears to be challenging!
Nothing wrong with that, but I would like to limit losses as much as possible!


mike



On May 27, 2014, at 2:32 PM, "Wilson" <infomet AT embarqmail.com> wrote:

> I gave up this year, because of poor luck with trucked in packages.When I
> heard of a locally started nuc, with a queen from nearby, I decided to give
> it another go.
> The new nuc is doing great and I'm adding supers!
> I will never buy trucked in bees again. I think the escalation of prices
> is bringing out packages hastily assembled and rushed to market.
> Yes, I know some work out, but a hundred bucks for some bugs that die is
> not a good deal!
> I will never buy trucked in bees again. It's much cheaper to buy honey!
>
> Don't you think the bees you took over just went home? Wouldn't you?
> Maybe moving them farther away from home would have helped?
> Who's to say that any group of bees is automatically love any queen dropped
> into them?
> Why not sell the queens and make stronger hives with whatever you have left?
> It's late in the season and two strong hives are far superior to more
> weaker ones.
> No expert here, just following my observations of ten years...Now to try to
> get my hive up to strength and through the winter.
> Who knows, maybe I'll get some honey next year. I'm going to feed and
> treat aggressively until next spring's flow, fingers crossed.
> WL
>
> -----Original Message----- From: mike johnson
> Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2014 1:26 PM
> To: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [ocba] bee conundrum…
>
> About eight weeks ago I got two packages of bees. One package is growing
> like crazy and the other fell way, way behind. Last week I opened the hive
> and found no evidence of the marked queen or any brood. So, I got a queen.
>
> Two days later I opened the hive and did a quick check to make sure I
> didn't find a queen or evidence and low and behold there was an unmarked
> queen. So I then had a newly bought queen with no where to put her. Back
> to Bailey Bee and bought a wooden 5 frame nuc.
>
> I took two frames from a hive started last year and put in the nuc with the
> queen cage. The frames had various stages of bee development and I left
> all the bees on the frames. I looked for a queen and did not see one on
> the transferred frames. This was last Thursday.
>
> Yesterday, Monday, I checked the nuc and all the bees had left and only the
> queen still in the cage and her attendants were left.
>
> So I'm left with a queen in the cage, a nuc, two frames full of brood in
> various stages of development and no bees.
>
> I have a hive I started last year (my first), a 2014 package that is going
> growing like crazy, and a 2014 package that is weak, but does have a queen
> now.
>
> Any suggestions about where to go from here? What should I do with the
> queen? What should I do with the frames?
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> mike
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