Newsletter

This webpage is to used by anyone in the club to post anything you do or see about honeybees, such as: honey production amounts, when you went into your hives and what did you find, good or bad, problems or pests, solutions to problems you had, splitting hives, installing queens, losing queens, swarming, etc. This will help others know what's going on with honeybees in our area and when its time to check their hives. Please feel free to send anything to russlewis@ec.rr.com .

10-27-09

One of our newest members, Terry Beckner, has been called to Afghanistan and will be leaving on November 14. He's built an amazing solar wax melter that he has offered to the club. All that's left to be done is sanding and painting! As you can see from the photos, it's a beauty and you can rest assured it's well built. Terry's hobby is woodworking. Besides solar wax melters, Terry's made unbelievably detailed, hand-carved walking stick handles, beautiful canoes and--are you ready?--violins!!!

You can see the solar wax melter at Tia's house if you want an up-close viewing.

Thanks to Terry's generosity, we're raffling it off, proceeds to purchase a much-needed laptop and projector for use at our presentations. Tickets are $2 each or 3 for $5 and can be purchased at our meetings on November 9, at the Christmas Party on December 14, or before the drawing at our January 11, 2010 meeting. Or you can send a check to Tia Douglass, President, CCBA, PO Box 791, Williston NC 28589-0791 and she will mail your tickets to you.

Once again we wish to thank Terry for his generosity, we wish him well and will keep in touch with him during his tour of duty in Afghanistan.

Tia

10-25-09

THIS IS THE HIVE THAT WE WON FROM RICK COORS A FEW YEARS AGO. THIS IS THE MORING AFTER TAKING SUPERS OFF FOR THE WINTER. IT SEEMS TO BE DOING OK.

Mary

10-23-09

We now have chickens and goats to go along with the bees. Our 9 year old grandson Dillon and his sister 4 years old, Heather, were out checking the chickens and goats 2 days ago and of course they are so observant. They came a running to the back door, from which we can see the hives, and were so concerned. They told me that our bees were dead. Well you know, I just slipped my shoes on and went right out to the hives. It was only one hive, no 5, so that was good. It sure looked so sad to see so many bees dead, just out on the front entrance. It was cold and almost dark, so we had to wait a couple of days to go into the hive. The only thing I could do was feed them. Made up sugar water. Had to do something so hoped that was the thing to do. Gus was gone to teach a class so couldn't reach him. That was the hive that I found the queen before Gus. Well it is one that we have to keep an eye on.

We went into the hives yesterday. We did find brood and no honey. To my surprise I found the queen in No 5 before Gus. We went thru the other hives and were able to take some frames of honey out of one and put into no 5. Today we are cleaning up some of the frames we took out and hive bodies. I had better get off before Gus comes to find out why I am not helping him, smile.

Mary

10-22-09

We noted a lot of what we believe to be robbing activity a couple of weeks ago. This has always been a very week hive and has yet to fill out the upper box. Still there has been some honey and some brood. We changed the entrance reducer to the smallest opening and installed a home made robber screen which stayed on for about a week. When we took the screen off, it seemed like the robbing had stopped.

Today we started feeding them with an 1/1 water sugar syrup with Fumagilin-B in a one gallon pail and the robbing and fighting started all over again. While all this was going on, the bees were still bringing in pollen. Unless advised otherwise, we will probably continue with the smallest entrance reducer and also feed them. Like you guys, we are doing this because we do not know what else to do.

We have some Honey B Healthy if that will do you any good.

Dwayne and Barbara

10-22-09

I just did my autumn management on the bees. First I put out two field feeders of 1:1, then I went in. My God, are they strong!! Hives 1 & 2 have 2 supers packed with goldenrod honey (I knew I smelled it!) in brand new, bright gold honeycomb! The brood boxes below have brood, pollen and honey, so it really looks like they're ready for winter. Hive #3 (the one we've split about 7 times) is totally packed! Really could've used some help to lift the supers, but I got them off with great difficulty (and put them back on with even greater difficulty!) As for the bees/brood, I had to put another empty box of drawn comb between the honey supers and the brood super. If it were spring they would surely swarm!

I also cleaned out the beetle eaters (not too bad, but not good either) and put entrance reducers on the front to keep critters out over the winter. Problem is, one of the reducers is #8 hardware and the drones that came out while I was inspecting look like they can't get back in! I don't think that is a problem. . .I hope not

Anyway, I'm thrilled with that golden comb. It is way beautiful!

Tia

10-22-09

One of my hives swarmed today. I guess the nice warm weather has them confused at this time of the year. It was a small swarm that was located in a low limb in a pine tree. I caught them in a honeybee postal shipping box. I am going to use them in a demo at the Harkers Island School Heritage Night, then put them back in a new hive the next day.

Russ

9-27-09

News Release

From: Tia Douglass

Date: September 27, 2009

The next meeting of the Crystal Coast Beekeepers Association is scheduled for Monday, October 12, at 7 PM. at the Morehead City Parks & Recreation Community Center, 1600 Fisher St (Corner of 16^th St) Please note change of venue.

Our speaker for the evening will be Brian Beasley. Mr. Beasley is Vice President of the Onslow County Beekeepers Association and will be speaking to us about the small hive beetle. To view the full agenda for the evening, visit our website at http://ccba.webng.com.

The purposes of the Crystal Coast Beekeepers are to promote a better understanding of the honeybee, encourage beekeeping as a hobby and teach better methods of beekeeping. Membership in the organization is open to any person who currently maintains bees or has an interest in beekeeping.

Is your group looking for a speaker? Our members would love to come speak to you at one of your meetings! Whether you’re interested in bees, beekeeping, honey, plantings for pollinators, or whatever, we can provide a speaker with the information you are looking for. For further information, contact Tia Douglass at 729-5491 or tdouglass@ec.rr.com.

9-22-09

Went in my hives today to return the frame that I used at the school in the observation hive. I also checked all 3 of my hives. 1 hive was doing great. One hive was queenless so I put a frame of brood from the good hive in it for the second time. The last hive is weak and the queen is producing very little. I'll probably combine it with the queenless hive later on.

Russ

9-22-09

Carolyn and I presented a honeybee demo at the Harkers Island School on Monday night. The event was called Heritage Night. The school is trying to teach the students and parents how life was in the Downeast area years ago. There were exhibits on how people worked, played, played music, worshiped, cooked, ate, gardened, built boats, mend nets, lived, fished, built houses, and protected our country and area. There were about 100 people in attendance. And as usual, we had more people that were interested in our exhibit with the live bees in the observation hive. There will be other Heritage Nights during the year. These exhibits will be used also to incorporate school subjects such as math, biology, science, history, reading, etc.

Check out the pictures on the Members Pictures webpage.

Russ & Carolyn

9-21-09

Members of our CCBA club presented a honeybee demo at the Emerald Isle Day 4 Kids. It was very well attended. We passed out many handouts on bees and beekeeping and all 50 of the handouts for kids are gone! Too, we went through 200 honey sticks!

Our new member, Terry, supplied the tent but was unable to attend because of his sick grandma. Dan and Eva were there for most of the day and provided the table. Julie and her troops were there and did most of the talking and were a great help at the end of the day in figuring out how to dissassemble the tent!

All in all, a lot of fun and a lot of interest in bees!

Check out the pictures on the Members Pictures webpage.

Tia

9-15-09

Let's give a big THANK-YOU to the club for outstanding participation in the Open House. We had over twenty different honeys to taste and the food was outstanding and plentiful. I don't think it could have gone better. (Well, the AC might have worked a little better).

Tia

9-7-09

Had a little bear trouble a couple of weeks ago. Check out all the bear damage pictures and our new pictures on our Members Pictures webpage.

Scott and Julie

9-7-09

We had an exciting year.

As we get older we realize how important the memories are to us.

We love the bee meetings that we attend. The one in Wilkesboro was a great one. Barbara Mercer and Carolyn Lewis and I were able to sneak away from our hubbies to go to Brushy Mountain. We were able to the store and, of course, shop. The warehouse is nice too.

Gus was able to take the practical for the Journeyman and Master bee test and Practical at the summer meeting. He will now concentrate on doing the rest of the responsibilities to become a Master bee keeper. Me, I am just happy to be a Certified bee keeper, and attend the monthly meetings. My goal is to become a Journeyman.

Mary & Gus

9-7-09

Here's what has been happening in our bee patch this summer.

We have been trying to keep all hives strong to fend off wax moths and SHB. It has meant combining and re-queening which has kinda put a crimp in our expansion plans.

We had fair success grafting queens but lost more than half of our mating nucs to SHB after the first matings. The nucs just are not strong enough to defend their combs. I used to think wax moths were the creepiest pests in the bee patch but now I've seen the slimy mess made by SHB larvae. UGH! We now have beetle traps in all hives...shoulda done it earlier. We are researching some kind of ground treatment to kill the larvae in the soil.

We now have four black queens. One was a supercedure, one came from a graft, one arrived with a swarm, and I just found another one being balled in a queenright hive. Anyone in the county have Russians or Carniolans? I can't figure out where these genes are coming from. See a couple of pictures in our "members pictures" site.

Loren & Peggy

9-6-09

I went through my hives yesterday and some great successes and some disappointments. Three hives are doing well, two of which have five or six frames of eggs, larva and brood and one has (can you believe) 20 frames of eggs, larva and brood. This is the hive that's been split 4 times in the past 2 years. This is some kind of a queen, I'll tell you!

The bad news is the swarm that I caught that went queenless has not made a queen despite being given frames with eggs twice. And my hive #2 was decimated by SHB. I removed the entire hive & put the boxes in the field for the bees to clean out, and put a clean box, SBB, inner & outer cover in its place to round up the bees (there were about 6 or 7 frames of bees left) which I will then probably move into one of the existing hives.

So I'm down to 3 viable hives and 2 queenless ones.

Tia

8-27-09

I went into one of my top bar hives, which was a weak hive, with standard Langstroth boxes and found the bottom box was full of wax moths. There were just a few bees and no brood and a few cells with uncapped honey that the bees were working. I didn't find any moths in the top box which was active with bees, eggs, larvae. The bees seemed to avoid the bottom box by entering at an entrance at the top of the hive. I have several pictures of the hive on my members pictures webpage also a short movie of the active wax moths. Check it out.

Russ

8-27-09

Lugean and I went into one of her hive that she thought had swarmed a couple of weeks ago to check if it was queenless and the condition of the hive. When we opened it, we found several frames with lots of capped brood and larvae. We didn't find the queen but some of the larvae was small enough that the queen should have been there within 3 or 4 days ago. The hive also had plenty of frames with capped honey and pollen.

Lugean & Russ

8-27-09

Hello!

Thanks to all who made our first 2009 Native Plant "Festival" a success. I hope you enjoyed meeting the crowd and selling your wares as much as we did. I wanted to give you advance notice of the 2010 Native Plant Festival dates and invite you back. The scheduled dates are:

Friday, April 23 from 3-7 pm - for NCCF members only Saturday,

April 24 from 8 - 4pm - public sale

Hopefully this will give you an opportunity to "hold the dates". I'll be in touch soon and hope you plan to participate in 2010!

Thanks again. Rose Rundell

Administrative Assistant roser@nccoast.org North Carolina Coastal Federation 3609 Highway 24 (Ocean) Newport, NC 28570 www.nccoast.org 252-393-8185

Citizens Working Together to Protect the Coast

8-22-09

A couple of days ago, I checked the SHB trap located under a screened bottom board. I had placed vegetable oil with a bit of apple vinegar in the bottom tray of the trap. In addition to a couple of dead wax moths, I found a tan colored worm with a dark brown end. It measured 1 1/8 long by 1/8 inch across. It was dead but I have no idea what it is or why it was there. I saw no indication of Wax moth activity in the hive which has started as a nuc in May and has only filled the brood box (deep). That box is teeming with brood and honey and is now only starting to move up into the honey deep. Attached is a poor quality photo but the best I could do.

Thoughts appreciated.

Dwayne

8-13-09

Wanted you to know I extracted honey a couple of weeks ago, from 2 hives, total of 16 frames. I got 113 lbs. of honey!

And Lordy, is it good!!!

Also, I bought 2 small hives, 5 frames each, from Loren Hale. They seem to be doing ok.

Hope all is well.

Bruce

8-13-09

News Release

From: Tia Douglass

Date: August 12, 2009

Crystal Coast Beekeepers Association wants to make you aware that Saturday, August 22 is National Honey Bee Day. Why should we celebrate the honey bee? The honey bee is responsible for one-third of our food supply and is necessary to our survival. Yet Virginia Tech bee specialist Richard Fell reports that North Carolina has lost 50 percent of its honeybees in the last 20 years, nearly 90 per cent of its wild honey bee population in the past few years and about 30 per cent of its domestic bee colonies so far this year.

So how can we help the honey bee? Mr. Fell says, “To save the bees, do not spray anything in bloom.”

Honey bees are essential for pollinating nearly all fruits, such as blueberries, strawberries, apples and melons, as well as vining vegetables, including cucumbers and squash. To make a well-formed apple, a bee must visit an apple blossom eight times to fully pollinate it. All bees can pollinate blooms, but honeybees are best. Bumblebees pollinate, but when spring crops are in bloom, there are not enough bumblebees to get the job done. Beetles and flies also pollinate plants, but most are not good pollen carriers. “Without insect pollination, many plants and fruit trees will not produce fruit,'' said John Ambrose, an entomology professor and bee expert at North Carolina State University. “They would have to be hand-pollinated, and that's simply not economically feasible.''

“Even if the decline were halted immediately, it would take years to make up the loss,” Ambrose noted. “In the meantime, farmers may suffer losses from reduced yields, and consumers will have to pay more for their produce.'' The situation is so serious that many orchard operators have resorted to renting bee hives from beekeepers in this area to put in orchards while trees are in bloom. And the demand for hives is greater than the supply.

The good news is that honey bees are on the upswing here in Carteret County thanks to the Crystal Coast Beekeepers. The club has grown to 64 members over the past three years with close to 200 new bee hives.

So the next time you see a honey bee, thank her!

Interesting in Beekeeping? Crystal Coast Beekeepers meets every second Monday of the month at 7 pm at Morehead City Parks & Rec, 1600 Fisher Street, or contact Tia Douglass at 729-5491. or go to our website at http://ccba.webng.com

Is your group looking for a speaker? Our members would love to come speak to you at one of your meetings! Whether you’re interested in bees, beekeeping, honey, plantings for pollinators, or whatever, we can provide a speaker with the information you are looking for. For further information, contact Tia Douglass at 729-5491 or tdouglass@ec.rr.com.

8-11-09

September is Honey Month and Crystal Coast Beekeepers will be celebrating with an Open House at their September 14 meeting! Members will be bringing in samples of this year’s harvests for tasting and comparing. Differences can be great from place to place and it’s always fun to see and savor those differences. Plus, members will be bringing samples of their favorite honey recipes and copies of the recipes for you to take home with you! There will also be informational handouts available. You are all invited to attend! The meeting starts at 7 pm at the Morehead City Parks & Rec Community Building, 1600 Fisher Street. We’d love to see you there. Give us a chance to show off the products of our labor!

8-11-09

Welcome New Members Terry Beckner, Maryellen Brown, Lugean Hogan and Angela Becker! Terry is already a State/Onslow County Member and presently has 5 active hives. Lugean has 3 active hives. Maryellen and Angela are "NewBees"! Don't worry. Our membership just loves to help! Welcome all of you! With every new member our chapter is that much greater!