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  • From: John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com>
  • To: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] Status Update OCBA Hives at CHS
  • Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2016 18:21:59 -0400

And now for something entirely different . . . 

As most of you know, OCBA maintains two demonstration hives at Carrboro High School. After yesterday's inspection 6 of the 8 CHS students took the time to personally thank me for sharing the inner workings of a hive with them and to let me know that they look forward to learning more. I was heartened by their interest and their enthusiasm.

The summary below was provided to OCBA's executive board to bring everyone up to date on one of our community outreach efforts. OCBA members also maintain demonstration hives at Blackwood Farm Park. Thanks to all of the dedicated, knowledgeable OCBA members who work to share our enthusiasm for beekeeping!

We do good work educating the non-beekeeping community about the importance of bees and every OCBA member can take pride in that.

John Rintoul
(919) 414-4071
No trees or bees were killed in the distribution of this message, but countless electrons were seriously inconvenienced.
 
I've inspected both of the hives at CHS in the last 7 days. 8 potential Bee Club students and 2 teachers observed yesterday's inspection and asked lots of questions. No one got stung. We had veils for 6 students and 1 teacher. Walter just offered one more and Chris has 3 OCBA loaners that I should be able to carry around before the next hive event. The CHS teacher sponsors are going to ask CHCCS Administration for a couple more to be kept at CHS.

Both hives are doing very well. We saw both queens, caught and marked one queen with white. The other will be marked at a later event. The brood pattern is good, each colony had at least 3 frames filled edge to edge, top to bottom with capped brood and 3 more frames with palm sized patches of mixed open and capped brood. SHB numbers are low. No sign of disease or wax moths.

Sugar shakes were done August 12, again with students participating. Hive 1 had zero mites, Hive 2 had 1. We'll shake again mid-September. FYI - the sugar shake process was a real hit with the students and their teacher. I'm not sure why.

We've stopped feeding Hive 2 because they have good stores and are bringing in lots of nectar.

Hive 1 is still recovering from the earlier pesticide kill. We supplemented Hive 1 with 3 frames of brood from Hive 2 over the course of the summer. I think it has more than enough bees to overwinter. Assuming that we can keep them alive until then. Stores are still light in the hive, so that feeder is still in place.


  • [ocba] Status Update OCBA Hives at CHS, John Rintoul, 09/01/2016

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