Fall Dogwood near my hives from yesterday

How i miss the green spring, the busy hives, growing, expanding in numbers, now we have declining hives, going into 30 deg nights, clustering, and no activity by the time i get home from work... very sad. Now the waiting game begins and see what spring hold in regards to hive numbers and health. Only time will tell.

Buckingham Bee Classes

I will be putting on a 3 part Beginners Bee Class at the Buckingham County Extension Office.

All classes will begin at 6:30 pm and run till about 9:00 pm depending on content and questions etc. The April class is still up in the air right now...

More information will follow but i wanted to get this out here so people can start making plans.

If you have any question please feel free to contact me.

Here is the basic Agenda:

December 15^th:

·         Introduction to Bee Keeping [Books, Websites, What to expect](10 minutes)

·         Basic Bee Keeping Equipment and Terminology (60 minutes)

o    Hive Bodies

o    Supers

o    Frames

o    Foundation

o    Bottom Board

o    Inner and Outer Cover

o    Feeders

·         The Colony (Queen, Drone, and Workers) (30 minutes)

·         Basic “How To” Hive Inspection (30 minutes)

·         Q&A (20 minutes)

January 12^th:

·         Recap of December’s Class (10 minutes)

·         Detailed Hive Inspection (60 minutes)

o   Disease

o   Pest

o   Seasonal Changes

·         The Colony (Queen, Drone, and Workers) (10 minutes)

o   Breeds

·         Hive Expansion (40 minutes)

o   Basic Splits

o   Basic Queen Breeding “Things to Know”

·         Q&A (30 minutes)

February 16^th: (I would like to highlight that Mark Bennett the General Manager of Dadant in Chatham VA will be onsite taking orders for equipment and package bees)

·         Recap of January’s Class (10 minutes)

·         Packages vs. Nucs (30 minutes)

o   Package Installation

o   Nuc Installation

o   Getting them off on the right foot

·         Review of basic equipment needed for ordering (30 minutes)

·         Ordering Equipment with Mark Bennett from Dadant (30 minutes)

·         Ordering Packages with Mark Bennett from Dadant (30 minutes)

·         Q&A (20 minutes)

April ??^th: (Sometime before the second week in April, but no earlier than the end of March (weather dependent), which is usually when the first packages arrive)

·         Review of installing a package

·         Review of installing a nuc

·         Review of new bees care list

·         Hands on (2 hives) inspection.

Basic bee yard info

So I have 18 very strong hives in either double deeps or one deep and two mediums. My current queens are either made onsite usinf open mating or from the following sources: zia queen bees , carnie queens, hunter apiaries, bobby oakes, honey rustlin farms, and one excellant package queen from gardner bees from my first year!

I am planning on going head first into grafting in the upcoming spring to start producing from my best hives and hopefully so called local survivor hives.

My overall expectations are to have around 50 healthy hives and then start selling nucs.

New Site

So this is my FIRST Blog ever!!! I have been wanting to start one for some time to chit chat about my bees and things and now i have it using Google Blogger...

So bare with me, i am sure it wont be fancy or colorful, but practical and fun i hope it will be.

Doug