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I've been keeping this blog for all of my beekeeping years and I am beginning my 19th year of beekeeping in April 2024. Now there are more than 1300 posts on this blog. Please use the search bar below to search the blog for other posts on a subject in which you are interested. You can also click on the "label" at the end of a post and all posts with that label will show up. At the very bottom of this page is a list of all the labels I've used.

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I began this blog to chronicle my beekeeping experiences. I have read lots of beekeeping books, but nothing takes the place of either hands-on experience with an experienced beekeeper or good pictures of the process. I want people to have a clearer picture of what to expect in their beekeeping so I post pictures and write about my beekeeping saga here.Master Beekeeper Enjoy with me as I learn and grow as a beekeeper.

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Tuesday, March 04, 2014

First Chastain Hive Inspection 2014

Only one hive overwintered at Chastain.  My nuc and my unmated queen hive from the Fatbeeman (I will never recommend him to anyone again) both died/absconded before winter began and Noah's hive there died as well.

The first official hive inspection for Metro Atlanta Beekeepers was held on Saturday, March 1.  Julia was in charge of it and we had nine people coming to learn.  Some had attended the short course and others were members of MABA.

We found the hive alive and doing medium well.  It wasn't busting out of the seams as some others are right now, but there was evidence of a laying queen (we saw eggs and small larvae).  We also saw some drone brood as well as worker brood.  It was a coldish day, just barely over 50, so we worried a little about the passing around of frames, but this is a teaching hive and supposed to be a learning experience.  In other words, we probably sacrificed some brood for the experience of the participants.

One beekeeper borrowed a veil of mine and I'm embarrassed to say that there were THREE holes that I was unaware of in the veil material.  So she got a bee or two inside her veil.  It was an opportunity to show the participants how to move slowly and we were able to encourage the bees to leave with no harm to her!

If you can't see the slideshow below, here is a link to it.  Here is a slideshow of our inspection:

2 comments:

  1. Hi, the slideshow doesn't seem to work :-(

    ReplyDelete
  2. The slideshow works for me on every computer I open it up in, but I can't get the slideshow on my iPad. Don't think I ever have seen one of my slideshows on the iPad - maybe because it's through Google??? Picasa web albums is what I used for this. I've tried Flickr also but it often is offline.

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