3 April 2014 meeting in Dublin
Deb facilitating the meeting. Introduced Barry Chapin from Plymouth, Pemebaker
Club. He passed out a survey on what practices each does with over wintering
their hives and their success. He is surveying NH.
Steve and Deb talked about preventing swarming and if you are feeding your
bees. Pollen gets the bees growing fast. When the hives get to a certain size in
density, they can swarm. When your bees get to 36 bees per square inch, they
can swarm. The queen puts out a pheromone and spreads it and daily gets 1/28th
millionth of an ounce of this a day. Queens also excretes from her feet as she
walks around she spreads it. There are over 23 chemicals identified from this
pheromone. Good sign is queen cells.
Steve – top bar hive, when the comb is misshapen could be a sign of swarming.
Queen cups are ok but when they get longer then it is a sign. If the queen is not
good, they could supersede.
Deb has a handout. Explained how Erin Forbes prevents swarms as she described
in our class in March.
Artificial swarm – per Erin – cage the queen, divides the hive.
Checker boarding –
Opening the brood nest –
Overland Honey is Erin’s site.
Ohio State beekeeping Webinars – sign up as a guest, then will received alerts as
to when the webinars are shown. Dewey Karin talks about splits this month. At
end of the hour they answer questions that are sent in.
Change frames every 5 yrs, every year put in two new frames at each end.
If queen cups start to get built up with new white wax, keep an eye on them.
When dandelions come out, be aware of swarming.
Use Hopguard in the fall. It’s not legal in NH, the results are 50/50. No tracheal
mites around here but varroa mites are bad.
There were 26 in attendance.