I attended our Virginia State Beekeepers Association Fall 2019 meeting at the Blue Ridge Community College in Weyers Cave, Virginia, held the first Saturday in November. The theme this year was all about queens, as we had two wonderful speakers discuss their research: Heather Matilla and Alison McAfee. Posting this at the end of November seems to bookmark the month rather nicely.
Title slide for one of the talks at the VSBA 2019 Fall Meeting
I posted an article on LinkedIn recently and wanted to share it here for posterity’s sake. Working in the corporate world, I think about how honey bee colonies might represent well-run corporations. This is one such musing. Enjoy. Continue reading
Venus and and the other hives on June 5 amongst the bee-friendly weeds in the bee yard.
I was fortunate to be home when our hive Jupiter swarmed on April 25. I managed to wrestle the bees into a new top bar hive and set them up in my apiary. This weekend was nearly two weeks later, and I was anxious to take a close look to see how they were faring. Continue reading
This is the first of two posts about the VSBA 2015 Fall Meeting. See my prior post for a short summary of the meeting. This post is about the two talks given by Dr. David Tarpy on queen quality and the bee testing clinic at the North Carolina State University (NCSU).
A quick update on the bees. We did our first inspection yesterday. The bees look good, and saw two of the three queens. The Langstroth boxes didn’t seem so full as to warrant a second box, and the top bar hive was amazing. Here are some pictures. Continue reading
So just what are these social insects called honey bees?
Honey bee egg and larva in the comb
Honey bees, like all holometabolous insects, grow in four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and finally the bee. The egg, larva, and pupa stages occur in the honeycomb, after which they become a buzzing bee. This you probably know.
You may also know there are three types of adult honey bees. Continue reading
