Just wanted to introduce myself. My name is David and I am fixing to start my second year of beekeeping in Middleburg, Fl. I have had my ups and down. I started last April with 3 hives, did splits that brought me to 6, then had 2 go queenless and they wouldn't accept a new queen, so I merged them back. Was placing some pollen patties and syrup on them this past Sat and noticed that the one hive that I have at another location was nearly empty and had wax moth larvae crawling around the upper deep. Those boxes are in the freezer right now and I hope be able to intrdouce the frames back into splits I am planning on doing with the spring buildup. Have ordered three more hives and 2 nucs so hopefully I will have ~12 hives by July.
welcom to the fourm man....we got alot of good people on this fourm to answer any question you can ask.....i have yet to stump any of these guys.....there are several florida beeks on here....i dont know where Middleburg is....im in sumter county florida (central) Rast is near me...Crackerbee an Americasbeekeeper are in the tampa area....Zookeep is further south near sarasota....there are more but those are just a few....se ya around
Welcome opiewan: :hi: You have found a friendly beekeeping forum here. Questions are usually answered fairly quickly and like 2kooldad says you have some keeps not that far away that will be able to provide valuable local information. Glad you found us! :thumbsup:
a big howdy from Texas and Go Gators! (ps Crackerbees general location was at one time my home town.... long long ago in a galaxy far far away).
Thanks everyone. It is definately been an interesting road and I am looking forward to more adventures and some more stings. I am a member of the North East Florida Honey Bee Association and my mentor in this has hives a 1/4 mile down the road from my house, so he's pretty much alwasy available. Luckily for me, my office is only about 250 feet from Jerry Hayes and David Westervelt's office and that's a great wealth of information as well.