Honey-filled SPARK bee hives

Today Sarah, my daughter, and I went to SPARK to check on the state of the hives. We were hoping to split the hives today, but there were drone brood cells but only one or two boys in the hive. So we opened up the brood nest and worked on the hives.

The principal, Terry Harness, met us there to let us in (it's winter break and the teachers and kids are not there). He took photos (I did not) and tweeted them (so click to see them) and below are two photos taken by Principal Terry Harness.

(both photos above are by Principal Terry Harness)

Remember the comb that was standing on top of the queen excluder?  When we removed the queen excluder, we found the comb intact and below the queen excluder, the bees had hung brood comb. We cut the brood comb off of the bottom and rubber banded it into a medium frame.

We added a box to each hive. Where we could, we opened up the brood nest. Turns out that some of the boxes on the hive are shallows so we couldn't checkerboard to open it up. I'm thinking I may move those shallow frames into medium boxes even though there will be space below that the bees will fill with comb. I can't stand not having transferable frames.

It did feel good to remove each queen excluder and leave the hives in better shape than before.

We cut the honey comb off of the queen excluder and I brought it home and immediately crushed it to harvest it.

When the honey has drained into the honey bucket, I'll bottle it and put together a bee gift bag to be auctioned at SPARK's fundraiser in a few weeks.

GBA Meeting is Coming Up

For the last year I have served as President of the Georgia Beekeepers Association. I was reelected in October to serve another year. It's wonderful to get to work with beekeepers all over the state and to meet so many new people who love our favorite insect.

On Saturday, February 17, we have the GBA Spring Conference. The all-day meeting actually begins the day before when we have a GBA Board Meeting on Friday the 16th, followed by a catered dinner following the board meeting. Dr. Diana Sammataro who is one of our keynote speakers will be our dinner speaker and will speak about "Mites and Fungicides."

If you live nearby and want to come, the meeting is at the UGA Griffin Campus, 1109 Experiment St, Griffin, GA 30223.  The campus is about an hour south of Atlanta. Here's where to register. 

And here is the program: