Honey Bees

I use Murphy oil soap in water to spray the bugs in the garden. Kills most any pests and safe for bees.
Use a couple of splashes of soap in a gallon of water. Add a tablespoon of Cayenne pepper if you have a lot of leaf eaters. Spray early morning when bugs are out in person, as it works better with direct contact.
 
Well my bees did good this year. Got about 15 or so frames of honey out of the one hive total for the year, and still have tons left for the bees.

Planning on more nucs for next year so I can start doing some limited farmers market stuff in the future.
 
We did pretty good on honey this year. We robbed close to a thousand pounds. It cost me dearly. I waited to pull suppers too late in my back yard. They were still making allot of honey before the Goldenrod bloomed so I let them keep on doing Thier thing. I pulled suppers and did mite checks and got a shocker. Mite counts were 15. Treated with hop guard and oxcylic acid to no avail. Lost 12 of 16 colonies in my backyard. Lesson learned is don't wait to treat the hives for mites. This will not happen again.
 
Anyone ever do 8 frame hives? I have been hearing more about it lately. Wondering what people's thoughts were.
 
We still use 10 frame hives, but I can see moving to 8 frames at some point. Those 10 frame honey supers can get heavy and awkward. Other than weight, I don't know if there is any benefit either way.
 
I use all 10 frame hives. The older I get, the lighter 8 frame stuff looks better. A few years ago we helped a sick club member pull honey off. He had all 10 frame
medium honey supers. It almost killed me!!
 
I have been thinking about trying to get into beekeeping lately. What would be a rough estimate of costs to get everything needed to start. I’m also going to look into a beekeeping class as well.
 
Check out the local Beekeeper club. Your county should have one. You can look on the website at https://www.ncbeekeepers.org/. They may have classes starting soon. Our club (Stanly County) starts our beginning classes in January each year.
AS for cost, It's like any other hobby. You can spend as much or as little as you want to. Best bet is to go to the supply store in your area and get to know them real good. Not sure where you live, but I think there is a bigger supply house up your way. Check out Brushy Mountain Bee Supply . They are in N Wilksboro, NC . Good people and a huge showroom. There is a good supplier in Albemarle that is a super great guy that is very knowledgeable. Try to avoid used or old equipment if you are starting out. You will learn about pests and disease later. If you are a woodworker, you can make most of your hive wooden ware, but some parts are better to buy, Just keep standard size, so it is all interchangeable.
Not knowing your age or physical abilities, now is the best time to decide on 10 frame or 8 frame equipment.
Brushy Mtn has their deluxe bee-ginners kits for $375, hive, suit, tools, all you need to get started.
Bees in this area are around$125 for packages to $150 or so for 5 frame nucs. If you are serious about starting, you need to order bees from someone soon.
Lots to digest, but that's it in a nutshell.
Happy beekeeping, Doug
 
Thanks for the link. I’m going to take a class before I do anything and one of my moms friends keeps bees for fun. He has offered to let me and my girlfriend come check it out and see how it all works. I think I’m also going to take him up on the offer.
 
That sounds great. Having someone as a mentor is a big asset. All the guys in our club are great about helping old and new members. You will need help.
I started in the late 70's and I still need help and advice. Bkeeps are a good bunch of folks, just like this group.
 
Well my bees seem to have frozen/starved themselves. Despite there being several frames of honey left in the hive.

Oh well, how did everyone else fare this cold snap.
 
I suspect that I am going to find 2 dead hives, but don't think it was from starving. There were bees going in and out of both hives Saturday, but I suspect they were robbing the remaining honey.
 
Feeding all my hives syrup now. Mixed up some pollen patties Sunday and put on 2 hives. I am going to build these up fast and try to make some early nucs.
It looks like all mine have made it so far. Late Jan and early Feb are always the worst time for them. They are starting to build up and will get ahead of the food supply.
Red maple is starting to bud out now. I hope to see bees with pollen in a week or so.
 
I have decided to give the beekeeping a try. I've made my deposit on 2 hives and completed to local class.
Good luck, and we are here to help. You will have lots of questions as you start out, so feel free to ask. Make sure that you have all your wooden ware and frames ready to go when the bees arrive.
They won't wait.
 
Is there anybody here that needs an extra hand tending to their bees. Our local class isn’t being offered this year, and I wouldn’t mind seeing what all is involved in beekeeping. I’m located in Siler City and available most weekends.
 
Is there a training resource that covers other states....SE PA in particular??

Rooster
 
Thanks beamernc!! I just spent an hour there rootin around....very interesting videos on the "plight of the honey bee". Those mites are nasty creatures!!

R
 
Mites and hive beetles are the biggest problem in my area. Several hives I have checked already have more than normal amounts of small hive beetles. Looks like they survived the winter
better than the bees did.
 
going to get my nucs in a few days.... Wonder how angry they are going to be after riding around in the back of a pickup for 4 or 5 hours.
 
I put out 2 packages Sunday afternoon. They got to ride home on the front seat of the truck. There were a few loose ones flying around.
 
Just picked up 50 lbs of honey from Necked Farm in Pittsboro from NC bee keeps assoc. for a beer brew we have coming up. Was talking to her: I had 5 hives at one point, but lost all of them. She said she spends most of her time making new hives. Told her till they get what ever the F is wrong, not going to keep bees.
 
Found this little group on Sat and it didn’t take me long to shut the windows up on the tractor cab after I had disturbed them accidentally. They were none to happy I had brushed the limb a little to hard right below them with a grain drill reseeding pasture.30BD66B3-2B42-495A-AF3C-EE38459595FD.jpeg
 
Is that a swarm? If I was closer, I would have gotten rid of them for you.
 
Not sure if it was a swarm or active hive but think so not a bee man here so forgive me. They were on a really long limb that is on a hollow tree over in a pasture so not a big bother. They kept gong back to the same spot on the tree even after I had distrubed them and they somewhat calmed back down. Not opposed to them at all as they are good for crops and things around the farm I just like to admire from a distance and not poke the bee hive.
 
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It was a swarm. Looks like a large one. They will remain with the queen until they find a forever home. Most of the time a swarm is very calm, as they have no hive or honey to protect. I wish I was closer.I would loved to have gotten them.
 
19 hours round trip. Rain, wind, clouds and 6+hours in the bed of a 30 year old ranger in desperate need of shocks and the bees have been brought home and installed.

Soon I will have 10s of thousands of Soviet bees at my disposal. Just in time of the midterm elections
 
I got a call Thursday afternoon about "bees everywhere in a shed". It was a large swarm in some boxes in a guys outbuilding. They hadn't been there long. I was able to get them in a hive pretty easy. Hardest part was moving enough stuff to get to them. Going back Friday evening to move them home.
Sometimes I get an easy one.
 
It has been a while since I posted anything here. I got real busy with the tree company and the bee company. We had some winter losses like everyone in the state. We are doing great this year and hope everyone else is as well. We robbed some of our colonies a month ago and ended up with 220lbs of honey. I will be robbing colonies again tomorrow. I will post our results here now that I have a new password. Thanks butter.
 
Robbed right at 100 lbs from the colonies in my back yard. The girls spent a lot of time inside the boxes eating honey during this rainy season we have had this year. I will be going to the big bee yard tomorrow. I may not be able to post results till Sunday on that robbery.
 
It's been many years since I got to work with bees... I appreciate you posting your experiences here and hope I can have hives of my own sometime down the road.
 
Got the cappings buckets, strainer buckets and extractor drained and ended up with an additional 55 pounds of honey. We will be selling some of this honey at the NC Zoo in Asheboro tomorrow. My wife and I volunteer at the Honeybee exhibit. We will be there from 9 to 4 answering questions and talking about bees. Durhamdad it is still possible to get some bees this year, but you will have to feed them alot to get them built up before winter.
 
I almost forgot to mention the North Carolina State Beekeepers Association is having their fall conference in Flat Rock NC. We will be helping with the Queen rearing classes.
 
I planted water lilies last weekend with bees in mind. I am told they will utilize both the flower for pollen and the pad itself to sit on while drinking water.
I plan to plant additional aquatic plants that are bee friendly.
Due to thier abundant supply of water, the aquatics provide blooms during drought periods. From my reading, that could be a lifesaver for a colony.

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Well we went to the conference and had a great time. I won a door prize for the first time in years. Got a hive stand donated by The Hive and the Honeybee. We also bought some Sourwood honey from them. We entered our extracted honey and creamed honey in the honey judging contest. We got a first place ribbon for our extracted honey and a second place ribbon for our creamed honey. Praying worked for us as it was our first contest.
 
Checked a hive today and don't know if they are going to make it. It was a new package that I got in April. There were 3 frames with some capped brood, no honey and the bees all looked lethargic and did not find a queen. I'm going to try and give them a boost with some syrup for a couple of days before I get another queen.
 
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