Always bring your tools - smoker, hive tool and veil. If you reserved bees bring your hive and a ratchet strap to hold it together on the way home.
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Always bring your tools - smoker, hive tool and veil. If you reserved bees bring your hive and a ratchet strap to hold it together on the way home.
Schedule for the rest of the year --
May 22nd Inspecting the beehive (Florida Apiary Inspector as guest speaker)
Jun 12th What should and should not be in the hive
July 17th Diseases, pests and parasites
August 21st Integrated Pest Management, Best Management Practices, Controlling Diseases Pests Parasites
September 18th Honey extraction and products of the hive (bring your frames of honey, supers and empty containers)
October 16th Queens and requeening
November 20th Keeping the hive alive through Winter
December 11th Preparing for Spring
Everything is lecture, question and answer followed by practical hands-on experience, rain plan is meet inside at USFBG
University of South Florida Botanical Gardens, Tampa, FL, start at 10:00, $10 $8 for USFBG members
One of our student's hive was lost to small hive beetles this week. The hive had just been inspected by the state and it was healthy on Monday. We will share some small hive beetle prevention in the inspection workshop next Saturday. One method is to get your hive strong fast. If your hive is not drawn out to 7 or 8 frames, you might consider adding a feeding patty which I will have a case of for class. The case of smokers is still on back order. Everything else will be there for Saturday.
I will do one more round of splits this Saturday. We need to move on to learning how to keep these hives alive!
Thank you to all who attended and assisted at the USFBG Inspecting bee workshop. There are new pictures posted at americasbeekeeper 2010_Gallery. The Garden hives and most of the students' hives are filling their honey supers. The student hives were just started in April. We used a mix of queens for splits this month - Cordovan, Caucasian and Buckfast from Canada. David Miksa supplies all the hives and queens for our workshops.
We are going to swap the August and September classes. The new schedule is
August 21st Honey extraction and products of the hive (bring your frames of honey, supers and empty containers)
September 18th Integrated Pest Management, Best Management Practices, Controlling Diseases Pests Parasites
There will be other opportunities before Winter to extract your honey. The Garden hives are ready now. Honey is sold by the Gardens in the gift shop.
It is a good year for the USFBG hives. To update there are two hives from last year. Each of the old hives has two deep honey supers, one fully capped and the seconds nearly capped. There are also two hives made from splits last month. These are for new beekeepers. Each of the new hives is ready for a honey super also. The two old hives are Cordovan and the two new hives are Buckfast from Canada. Those girls chase down small hive beetles like you can't imagine.
Our bee workshops made the local Fox news "Good Morning Tampa Bay" Sorry it starts with the commercial break.
http://www.clipsyndicate.com/video/p...pt=8&wpid=1277
I was going to hit the "like" button, but then realized this isn't Facebook. So I'll give you the :thumbsup:'s up for being willing to talk with a news person that doesn't know what in the world she is dealing with. :D
Thank you. Bees and people who want to learn the truth about bees need to hear the message. The workshops certainly do not need the publicity. The classes grow every month. We built over 100 hives this year and populated over half in class. Extracting all the supers already on those new hives is the next challenge. New beekeepers from last year are taking an active part helping teach new beekeepers this year. Hopefully they will take on a greater role next year. We are currently looking for a large trailer or building to build a honey room onsite. Most of the beeks become members of the local Tampa Bay Beekeepers Association. Except for depleting the suppliers stocks - everyone wins!
The next USF workshop is honey extraction. If you wish to extract your personal honey, bring it from supers to single frames. Bring clean containers for your liquid treasure too. The class is broken into two groups this year due to overwhelming attendance. Reservations are first come-first serve and the morning is nearly full already. The teaching hives have several supers so there will be plenty to experience if you just come to learn and enjoy.
The americasbeekeeper.com website is wrong again. Honey extraction and products of the hive is next Saturday. I bought a dozen queens from Miksa. This is the last batch of the season. We experienced insecticide poisoning from the local mosquito control. All the teaching hive queens will be replaced on Saturday and three hives split for next year.
The hive products and honey extraction workshop went well. Several new beekeepers brought in supers from their hives started at the April workshop. One teaching hive brought in 5 gallons. We made a real mess of the science lab. There was honey everywhere by the time everyone cut or scraped cappings and took a turn at the extractor.
The USF apiary was hit hard with mosquito spraying. One hive died and the queens were noticeably injured in the others. All the hives were requeened Saturday morning and two were strong enough to split. Thank you to Miksa Honey Farms once again.
There were a few first time attendees that are hooked now. If you do not remember your first extraction experience, why are you keeping bees? The director had to chase people out at the end of the day. As for me, I will answer questions and mentor beekeepers until the sun goes down.
My wife and I were first-timers at this workshop and found it to be immensely helpful to us. We are newcomers to beekeeping and we are pursuing it as an enriching hobby with one hive so far in a residential subdivision environment. I was able to ask many questions that have been "buzzing" around in my head for some time and found the answers to be straightforward, to-the-point and useful. I hadn't expected the "hands-on" part of the instruction which was, of course, particularly helpful. Thanks for a valuable, interesting experience.
This Saturday we will be discovering Integrated Pest Management and Best Management Practices - how to keep the hive alive! BMP IPM takes knowledge of diseases, pests and parasites learned this Summer and determining thresholds, and best methods of bee management. We will be checking the hives split or requeened last workshop that were impacted by the mosquito spraying.
The calendar on the USFBG website says the IPM BPM workshop is 9/18. Is that correct?
The 18th is correct. I am just over-enthusiastic with two weekends in a row this month. The Honey Tasting bee day is even grander the following week with live jazz, food and activities.
Well it may not be the best time of year, but October's workshop is requeening. We will talk about when to, why should you, and how do you re-queen. How do you select queens. For the adventurous and steady of hand we will attempt grafting. Everyone can look at the stages of egg and larvae for future reference. The grafts will be maintained at USF by one of our most experienced second-year beekeepers. This is his first time so please a little encouragement. If he can get them out of the finishing hive before there is only one left, he will make mating nucs. If they survive the Winter, they will be available for next years workshops.
Saturday, November 20th is Keeping the hive alive through Winter at USF
In addition to talking about the steps to keep your hives alive overwinter, and hands-on inspections, we will be moving a feral colony from an owl box to the top bar hive. I know many have been waiting and asking about the process of moving feral colonies. They will have plenty of drawn comb from the other teaching hives to start their new life. We put top bars in the teaching hives last month. They are already drawn with stores and brood.
Thank you to all who attended and helped at today's Bee Workshop. The bees are happily moved from their old bird house to the Kenyan top bar hive. I will get pictures posted as soon as I receive them.
The next workshop will include a thank you pot luck dinner hosted by the USFBG Director. Please bring a side dish to share next class. There were so many questions today. I hope everyone caught the major points to keep the hive alive through the Winter - feed, reduce entrance, ventilation, disease/pest/parasite control, stay out of the hive below 50 degrees, limit space/supers to actual need, etc.