Wierd Weather and Things

North Cariolina has had quite a bit of rain in the past weeks. So much so, there is flooding going on. It is sad when you see something like this:

These are a bunch of floating and washed away bee hives in Boonville, NC. The Yadkin River overflowed its banks by 28'







Now we have another winter storm warning for NC. Friday and Saturday are expected to snow almost all day, both days. They are expecting several inches. Then possibly more snow Tuesday, Thursday and Friday next week! Now that they are predicting several inches of snow and everyone is running to the grocery scared of 2-3 days of bad weather. As we all know, people in NC don't get regular snow fall, so several inches scares everyone. We don't have the infrastructure to handle it.

The strawberry patch & other things

Larry Tate is talking with the owner of the berry field to see what he wants us to do. We are also comming up with a game plan for the bees there. There needs to be some serious cash invested in the woodenware and there is a lot of cleaning up to be done.

I have also contacted all of the pest control agencies in Winston and they will call me if they have any swarm or cutouts to be done. I am hoping to get one or two free colonies. I will keep one, and the others will go over to the strawberry field. I also have built a beevac from a shopvac and a cooler! I cannot wait to try it out. I am going to build a frame holder and it will be able to hold 6 frames and can act as a temp. nuc until I can get them installed.

I might be getting into queen grafting, raising and instrumental insemination with Larry Tate of Tates Apiaries..... LONG story on that one. I will post about it in a later post.

new adventure

While working with Larry Tate with his apiaries, he brought up something interesting. A strawberry farmer near us has some hives that he doesnt want to tend, but wants them left for the pollination. I would help tend them and get all of the honey as payment.

Sounds awesome right?!?!?!?!?




Well, there is a HUGE problem. Most of the woodenware is in such a poor state that it needs to be carted off and burned. The two of us went by to just see if it would be worth it. It was kinda muddy (which I can live with) but SAD! The woodenware had not been taken care of in about 5 years and had been treated poorly from the looks of it. Out of 10 or so hives, 3 were strong, 4 were iffy and 3 were downright scarry.... and there were about 5 deadouts mixed in.

I think I might give it a try anyway. I will continue to work with what I have there and it will either make it or not. When I go into them for the first time, I am not going to use my gloves or hivetool until I know there is no EFB or AFB present.... I dont want to be tracking that home. From the looks of things they have not been touched for at least a year.... so they are pretty strong if nothing has been done with them for well over a year and they are still around!

I might get a bonus of a few of these puppies

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