George Imirie’s PINK PAGES Why do I combine drawing foundation and proper supering into a single subject? Unlike we humans, honey bees are mentally able to plan ahead, and do all their duties only when there is a need. Drawn comb is only needed for either of two reasons: cells for brood rearing, or cells […]
George Imirie’s PINK PAGES Wow, you are talking my language when you mention UPPER ENTRANCE. I think every colony in the world should have an upper entrance 365 days of the year. I am in my 65th year of beekeeping, spending much of the last 20 years teaching beekeeping all over the world FREE OF
George Imirie’s PINK PAGES Italian? Carniolan? Buckfast? Caucasian? Midnite? Starline? Uncle Joe’s? What do you want or expect from your bees? Just as German people are known for their blue eyes and blonde hair, the Negro is known for their big round eyes and curly black hair, and the Oriental is distinguished by “slanted” eyes
George Imirie’s PINK PAGES Your doctor always takes your temperature with a thermometer to “test” for a fever. If telephone book numbers get harder to see, you go to the ophthalmologist who puts drops in your eyes, darkens the room, and then “tests” your eyes with an ophthalmoscope. Your dog runs across your driveway and
George Imirie’s PINK PAGES READY OR NOT — IT IS swarm season Did you know that prior to a hundred years ago, beekeepers wanted their bees to swarm? Were they “nuts”, or just wanted to create neighborhood FUN? Neither. Up until Rev. Langstroth invented the movable frame hives were kept in straw skeps or old
George Imirie’s PINK PAGES It is quite apparent from the questions seen on E-mail and the questions asked at bee association meetings that many Beekeepers need an understanding of favorable or unfavorable conditions when trying to requeen a colony. Two PRIME problems quickly come to mind: All of my followers know that I much prefer
George Imirie’s PINK PAGES In spite of my continuing disapproval of the use of UNKNOWN queens in contrast to purchasing a good queen from a reliable professional queen breeder and marking her(so you can identify her), there are still some beeHAVERS living in the “days of Daddy” who don’t requeen,and probably do not know how.
George Imirie’s PINK PAGES SPECIAL for TN Beekeepers President Robert Elwood asked me to talk about this subject at the October 2001 Meeting in Nashville; but I might not be alive then, so I said that I would write about it right now, so you have all summer to “solve the problem of bees dying
George Imirie’s PINK PAGES How do you know your bees are alive? Do they have enough food? Is the queen laying brood? Will there be enough foraging age bees present in the May nectar flow? Will there be enough nurse bees present in late March and early April to feed all these future forager bees?
George Imirie’s PINK PAGES At this time of year, I constantly seem to trip into 2nd season or even 3rd season novices trying to treat foundation and drawn comb as equals; and I explain that they are like nickels and quarters, while both are coins, they are not the same. The quarter would NOT fit