On November 21, 2021 we got together with some other beekeepers to talk about what to do to get ready for winter, some highlights from the NC Beekeepers Conference, and some updates from the year. You can view the recorded version of the program below.
Category: Hive maintenance
Care and feeding of the bees
Getting Ready for Winter: Wind Control
My bees are on a farmer friend’s property and there’s no natural wind break on the north side of the hives, so I need to do a couple of things to protect them. I can’t erect a wind break because it’ll create obstacles for my farmer that he doesn’t need so I just use Lowe’s …
Getting Ready for Winter: Food
In mid-October, we went through hives and moved brood down, food above the brood, and open frames on the far edges of the hive (if there were any empty or mostly empty frames). By mid-October, a lot of the queens were winding down on laying eggs and it wasn’t unusual to see small patches of …
Community: Revisting Kathi-Luise and Her Bees
Here’s a video we did this week with a recap of what’s been going on with Kathi-Luise’s bees.
Oxalic Acid Drizzle
Dr. Marion Ellis from the University of Nebraska spoke at an NCSBA bee conference in 2016 and covered a couple of methods for using oxalic acid to eliminate varroa in the hive. The trickle or drizzle or dribble method is one of the ways to treat. According to Dr. Ellis, this method is applicable only …
Bee Fondant vs. Sugar Blocks
Once the temperatures start dropping, the bees will have a hard time processing even the heavy sugar syrup. So I start adding bee fondant to the hives and that works pretty well for me. A lot of people use sugar blocks, but I started making and using bee fondant after a talk by NC Master …