There were 28 people in attendance at our last meeting with the main topics of discussion being swarms and adding supers.
Several ways of preventing swarms were mentioned.
1) Requeen every 2 years. This keeps a younger queen in charge of the hive. Young queens have usually stronger pharamones and brood patterns.
2) Reversing the Hive Bodies. If you work with 2 deeps this may be an option for you. This gives her the chance to move up into empty frames where young brood has already hatched. This is typically not practiced after we are well into the honey flow.
3) Splits allow you to keep the hive from growing to fast where they are more likely to have the swarming instinct. A split will also allow you to grow your bee yard in a more economical way.
4) Adding Supers. During the honey flow you must watch your honey supers to see how much room they have for storing nectar. When they start to run out of room for stores they think "Oh no! We do not have enough room" You guessed it, they swarm.
Swarms are comb making machines so if you catch one have fun watching them draw comb!!
On Saturday, June 23 at 10:00 we will have a field day at the home of John Hartmann. Inspections will be done on several hives. If you are a new beekeeper or have not done an inspection with other beekeepers in a while this a good opportunity to learn and see inspection techniques. BRING YOUR VEIL PLEASE!
John's address and phone number:
165 County Road 570, Englewood, TN
423-507-0063
NEXT MEETING JUNE 28TH 7:00PM
Program will be robbing and packaging honey.
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