April 12 Meeting
We are meeting at Wake County Commons Building
4011 Carya Drive Raleigh, NC 27613

 7:00 pm - Testing and Treating for Varroa Mites (in person and on ZOOM) 
One of the critical tasks for a beekeeper these days is to diligently test for varroa mites and to treat when the number of mites is over the IPM established threshold.  This is an important session will discuss the ways to test and treat for varroa mites in 2022.    

Gordon Goeking  has been a beekeeper since 2008.  He is a journeyman beekeeper and currently has 7 beehives in 2 locations within Wake County.  He has learned the importance of being diligent in the management of our esteemed honey bee and values greatly the requirement to have an Integrated Pest Management plan in place for the practice of managing honey bees.  He is currently the Secretary of the WCBA.  

7:30 pm - Creating a Profitable Beekeeping Business

Many people sell excess honey and other products from the hive to offset the costs of their beekeeping hobby. Some people are able to generate a small profit from their beekeeping efforts. Creating a profitable side-liner beekeeping operation takes a different approach compared to the typical hobbyist.

Steve Baxter, from Baxter’s Bees in Zebulon, will discuss how to approach beekeeping from a business perspective. He will discuss the importance of planning, creating a brand (which is more than a logo), establishing pricing, and creating product value.

Steve will also discuss the operational streamlining necessary to scale the operation for profitability (modeling a commercial beekeeper).

Steve and Shannon Baxter

Steve Baxter and his wife Shannon own and operate Baxter’s Bees in Zebulon, NC. They’ve been keeping bees for 11 years. They started out with 1 hive they won in a raffle at their very 1st bee club meeting. From that one hive they have built a successful side-liner beekeeping business with around 60 hives.

Shannon is the creative mind behind all of the products they sell and Steve is the primary beekeeper.

Steve and Shannon enjoy working with a variety of groups to help bring awareness to the importance of honeybees and look forward to mentoring opportunities; both beekeeping and creating a successful beekeeping business.

ZOOM Link for April 12 meeting:

Topic: WCBA April Monthly Meeting

Time: Apr 12, 2022 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88289758868?pwd=QjJYZE9HVGRaVlNyVnFCNkZ1QjVVZz09

Meeting ID: 882 8975 8868

Passcode: 200302

We will be meeting at Wake County Commons Building. 

Address: 4011 Carya Drive Raleigh, NC 27610 
Phone Number:   919-250-1000

There is plenty of parking in front of this building.  There is a guard at the front desk when you walk into the building.  If you put the address into your GPS it will direct you right to the building. 

North Carolina State Beekeepers Association Membership

If you paid the NCSBA annual membership fee when paying WCBA membership fee, those funds have been submitted to the NCSBA.  If you paid the $15 for the NCSBA membership and have not heard from the NCSBA, please contact Treasurer Susan Benton to get this resolved.  You may send an email to: treasurer@wakecountybeekeepers.org

We are now offering multiple Hands on the Hive sessions with Mr. Buzz, a.k.a. club member Ben Crawley  as OPEN SESSIONS or for the purpose of taking your Practical Test as part of the requirement to become a NCSBA Certified Beekeeper.  

April 2022 in the Bee Yard
Chris Hagwood

March has been a bit of a challenge for most beekeepers.  Early warm weather and access to lots of pollen and nectar has many colonies wanting to swarm early.  I found at least 3 of mine building swarm cells.  Because I saw good drone numbers in most colonies, I pulled frames with cells to allow them to be capped in splits/nucs, pulled the overwintered queen and about ⅓ of the bees and put them into another hive in another apiary, and left the mother colony with one frame with 2 or 3 queen cells.  This allows me to keep the productive queen, provides daughter queens in 2-3 weeks, and keeps the mother colony fairly large in hopes of taking up the real nectar flow coming up in April.

This process has also been challenging due to the dramatic swings in temperatures.  I will need to check the queen cell splits to see if they maintained a good temperature on cold nights to mature the queens.

Latter stage queen cells

Overwintered Colonies

If you have not already been checking your bees EVERY WEEK, start doing so.  I’ve been seeing a great number of beekeepers reporting swarming of their own colonies, which can usually be caught before the queen leaves with most of your bees.  While a frame-by-frame inspection is needed to guarantee zero swarm cells, most colonies preparing to swarm will build a large number of cells and include many along the bottom of the comb/frames.   Therefore, you should at least tilt each hive body and examine the bottom of frames for queen cups and look inside for eggs or larvae (see photos).  If you do this at least every 7 days, you’re more likely to see early stages of swarming and can take action and keep your bees in your own hives.  All the options and recommendations for this are beyond the scope of this article, but you can seek out advice or help from other beekeepers if you aren’t sure how to proceed.

Most overwintered colonies have not needed to be fed, but nectar availability is highly variable right now.  Supply some syrup and monitor how quickly it’s being used.  As long as outer edges of the brood nest have several inches of nectar in the cells, the bees are bringing in enough for their brood.  I’m not keen to give them excess nectar that ends up in supers so close to the nectar flow, which is right around the corner.

If you got in a mite check already, and have either already started a treatment or didn’t find the level of concern, you can likely leave them for the month of April.  Colonies that started off with no measurable mite infestation are likely to go much longer before needing help than those with even modest levels of mites early in the season.

To summarize:

• DETECT early stages of swarming before you lose your queen and most of your bees
• FEED if needed, but not excessively
• CHECK mite levels if you have not already done so
• PREPARE honey supers or go ahead and put them on

NUCS and PACKAGE bees started this spring

Nucs will need to build more comb if started with just 5 frames.  Begin feeding NUCS and PACKAGES will need to be fed a steady supply of 1:1 (by volume or weight, it doesn’t have to be exact) syrup.  Monitor NUCS after you’ve feed a gallon or so and make sure they are building comb with it.  They can sometimes fill the entire brood nest and be stubborn about building new comb.  If they do, hold back on the feed until they’ve used it up and the queen continues to have room to lay.

Once comb building has begun, and once nighttime lows remain in the 50’s, you can consider CHECKERBOARDING your comb among foundation to encourage them to build more comb.  This may be necessary to get them started on a 2nd hive body of comb quickly.

If you purchased a nuc, be sure to check the mite level soon after you get it established.  Don’t assume your producer had 100% of their colonies under control before they left the bee yard.  I have seen shockingly high mite levels in nucs purchased in March.

With NUCS, look out for swarm cells, which can sometimes happen when nucs build up fast without building comb.

If you purchased a package, consider using an OXALIC ACID dribble or vaporization on the entire colony before brood rearing begins.  The spring NCSBA conference showed a study with package bees started with and without an initial OA treatment, and the only colonies that needed treatment before fall were those that did not receive this initial dosage.

To summarize:

• FEED packages and nucs to build comb.  Monitor the storage of the syrup and slow feeding if comb building lags.
• CHECKERBOARD your frames after nighttime lows reach the 50s to encourage more comb building.
• CHECK for mites in nucs, consider an initial OA treatment for packages if the supplier did not.

The WCBA is presenting an Introduction to Honey Bees and Beekeeping at Pullen Park Community Center on Saturday morning April 23 and Saturday May 21 from 10:00 - 11:30 am.  You are welcome to come, bring friends or tell others about this event.  The link below will take you to the Raleigh Parks and Recreation information with the signup link.  The session is free.  

Introduction to Honey Bees and Beekeeping | Raleighnc.gov

As we head into spring, many bee keepers have their hives on their minds, but this is the time of year that we must also prepare our yards. Is your water supply adequate? Do we have a variety of plants? If you don't, let's not forget to plant for the bees and their competition. According to the NC Extension, the average last frost for Wake County is April 8th. So, as you decide what you will plant, from native Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) and butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) or borage, Have fun and give your bees plenty of fuel for their honey production.

This message was sent to you by Wake County Beekeepers Association, Inc.

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe at any time

The Wake County Beekeepers Association – Wake County Beekeepers Association