Honeybees in MoonflowerOur bees this year have been very strong and we have had many New Jersey beekeepers purchase our locally produced queens; the word has gotten around about what we are trying to accomplish by not using chemicals and using natural methods to manage our bees. In this season, our seventh season with out using chemicals, the bees have produced a bumper crop of honey and Mary has been very busy pulling and processing the plentiful honey. She has also continued to graft queens from three new breeder queens which we received in early April from Glenn Apiaries; (1) Russian and (2) Carniolan queens. In June Mary traveled to the University of California at Davis to attend an advanced instrumental insemination course taught by Sue Cobey. She has spent the summer, in her spare time, practicing in the lab we have set up in our home but we must say it takes much practice to master. Mary took her 1st instrumental class with Sue Cobey in 2007. We began using a new integrated pest management technique for controlling the African Hive beetle. It is called AJ’s Beetle eater and it was introduced in Australia. It has been very effective and very easy to use and of course there is no need to use chemicals; we just add vegetable oil to it. Mary is very excited by the strength of our bees and now as the last days of summer approach we are starting our winter nucleus preparations. In the past two years we have been very successful overwintering nucleus hives and we have to thank Kirk Webster, from Vermont, for spreading the word on this. We have found that in the spring the nucleus hives are bursting and ready to go.
