THE BEECO APIARIES ROUNDUP
March Beekeeping
— updates from our apiary —
 
THOUGHTS & REFLECTIONS ONMarch Beekeeping
This month has been full of all sorts of exciting beekeeping activities. From conferences, to short courses, to package installation, and queen grafting, we are definitely gearing up to try to keep pace with our bees! We are seeing strong brood patterns and trying to keep the hives fed and healthy ahead of the full on nectar flow coming soon. 
If you're in our area of Georgia, you know that March can be rather unpredictable with weather patterns. One weekend it is 80F and the next is below freezing. During this time, our goal is to keep our hives fed and happy leading up to nectar flow. We are seeing lots of bee activity and have been monitoring the hives closely to watch for any signs of swarm cells, adding additional supers as needed, and feeding consistently. Occasionally, we will replace weak or old queens with newly grafted queens. We have also added hive entrance reducers to help prevent robbing which is escalated due to the unstable weather conditions and an abundance of bees. 

 
Back in February, we attended the Georgia Beekeepers Association Spring Conference in Macon.
We enjoyed wonderful presentations by Dr. Delaplane & Dr. Bartlett from UGA Bee Lab and commercial beekeeper Kent Williams. The artisan show included creations such as honey, mead, beeswax products, baked goods, photography, and poetry submissions. 
 

 
“Intro to Beekeeping” Short Course Recap
Our Short Course on March 5th was a great day! We had about 25 people join us in Sparta for a day of learning about honey bee biology, beekeeping equipment, and the beekeeper's calendar. We'd like to thank the Sparta-Hancock County Library for graciously allowing us to use that space for presentations and to Bruce Morgan for opening up his shop for the hive inspections that afternoon. It's wonderful to see the diversity of people, both young and old, as well as families, interested in beekeeping. We had great feedback and are making plans to host another event on Saturday, May 14th at Morgan Apiaries. More information to come.
 
Practicing lighting a smoker prior to the hive inspections! 
— Save the Date —
Open House & In Hive Inspections
Saturday, May 14th
Morgan Apiaries in Sparta, Georgia
 
TESTIMONIAL FROM SHORT COURSE
It is the information I need to know to be more successful. I loved this class and will happily take any classes that are offered from BeeCo! I am EXCITED about getting my hives up and running again rather than fearing it.
 

 
— Package Installations at BeeCo —
 Early Preparations kicked off this month for our hives going to North Carolina this summer for the Sourwood Flow!
We received packages from a large apiary in south Georgia and installed them into deeps on the trailer we use to transport hives every summer for the Sourwood flow. The packages come with a mated queen, approximately 3 lbs. of bees, and a can of feed that they use during transportation. There are a lot of moving parts in preparing the trailer and equipment, but we're happy to share that they are looking very strong two weeks later and we've already had to add  supers to a few of them. More to come, but here are a few photos from the installation on evening of March 4th!
 
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And speaking of packages ….
 
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Enjoy the beginning of spring —
it's a very fun, exciting time to be a beekeeper!
 

Mary & Katherine

 

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