Mites and Heat
Those are the main two things on my mind and have been on my mind. I will start with my thoughts on MITES...we had a very strong early build-up this season and if you are one that was fortunate enough to keep your bees alive through the winter, then you should have already been monitoring your mites and based on those results, done a mite treatment and then made sure your mite load is very low. If you have not done so, your hive MITE be crashing already and you will be singing the blues in the next month when all you see is deformed wings and weak, sickly bees. We could entertain many different scenarios to get us to the point of where your bees are today, but the fact of the matter is that if you have not monitored your mite levels yet, then you are not doing your bees any favors, nor your neighbors' bees. Every year is different and maybe you think that it is too early to be worrying. You might hear a neighbor beekeeper or a beekeeper with hundreds of hives saying that their mite levels are low and that they're testing and not seeing many mites. But please, do not glean information off of others' hives to draw some correlation to how your bees are doing. Things do not work that way with bees.
The Nevada County Beekeepers Association is a diverse group of professionals and hobbyist, men and women, young and old, with a keen interest in promoting the well being of honey bees and their habitat while enjoying their amazing benefits. The NCBA strives to promote education on beekeeping and agriculture by providing the latest news and techniques in these fields.
The club members meet once a month on the first Monday at 7pm and visitors are always welcome. All meetings are held in the Veterans Memorial Building at 255 South Auburn Street, Grass Valley, CA. Entrance is off the back parking lot, in Grass Valley at 7pm. The August meeting is always moved to the County Fair Grounds with a fair booth clean up following by a barbeque social.
- Any questions about bees?
- Always wanted to get bees?
- Questions about honey production?
- Have some information to share?
- Wondering about pollination in your garden or orchard?
- Have some bees or equipment to sell?
- Want to meet some great folks?
Join our lively question and answer session starting promptly at 7pm followed by refreshments, brief business discussion, raffle and a great program.
