Transylvania County Beekeepers Association

Meeting opened at 7:00, with 6:30 social/set up time. About 12 members were present.

Previous meeting minutes ok’d by Parker and Dave. 

Treasurer Report:

The TCBA bank account started 2026 with a balance of $431.77.

Grant money received in August = $814.87

Expenses YTD = $449.47

The current balance in the TCBA account is $2,075.17. 

Upcoming events:

• Oct 22-  Devin will assist in N.C. Extension Homesteading program Intro to Beekeeping
• Nov 2 – Kirk Webster presenting My Journey as a Treatment Free Commercial Beekeeper at Buncombe County Beekeepers meeting 6:30 pm
• Nov 14 – visit Bob Binnie Honey Farm, sign up via Henderson County Beekeepers
• Nov 17-  Lewis Cauble, NC Honey Bee Inspector, will be our speaker

The guest speaker for this meeting was Benjamin Powell, Clemson University
Topic: 2025 Carolinas Honey Bee Disease Study and Yellow Legged Hornet update

Benjamin Powell shared findings from a 2025 study of honey bee diseases across North and South Carolina. Researchers sampled 100 colonies from 20 apiaries three times during the year. The study focused on four major diseases and parasites and examined whether Hurricane Helene affected disease levels.

Key findings:

• American Foulbrood (AFB): No cases detected.
• European Foulbrood (EFB): Found in 31% of colonies and 60% of apiaries. Less common in mountain regions, with no significant increase in areas affected by Hurricane Helene.
• Nosemosis: Detected in 92% of colonies, but only 12% had severe infections. Levels were highest in winter, declined in spring, and increased toward late summer.
• Varroa Mites: Found in 94% of colonies. Over half of the colonies exceeded treatment thresholds at least once, emphasizing the importance of mite monitoring and treatment.

Overall takeaway: Honey bee diseases and parasites are widespread throughout the Carolinas. Regular hive inspections, disease monitoring, and timely mite treatments remain essential for maintaining healthy colonies.

Yellow-Legged Hornet (Vespa velutina)

The Yellow-Legged Hornet (YLH) is an invasive species that poses a growing threat to honey bees and other pollinators. Benjamin Powell discussed its rapid spread, reproductive success, nesting habits, and potential impact on North Carolina beekeepers.

Key Facts from the Presentation

1. Spread into North Carolina

• Yellow-Legged Hornets were first detected in North Carolina in July 2026, with another population identified near High Point in August.
• More than 600 nests have been removed in the Southeast, according to the presentation.
• An estimated 4,000 queens were trapped in South Carolina’s Lowcountry between March and May 2026.
• Despite extensive nest removal efforts, populations continue to expand.

2. Why They Are So Successful

• A single nest can produce more than 200 queens, with one study documenting as many as 463.
• Hornets are strong flyers, capable of traveling up to 30 kilometers (approximately 19 miles) in a day.
• They eat a wide variety of foods, including insects, honey bees, fruit, nectar, and carrion.
• They build nests in trees, vegetation, cavities, and structures, making detection and removal challenging.

3. Life Cycle and Impact on Honey Bees

• January–March: Overwintered queens emerge and begin establishing nests.
• March–June: Small embryo and primary nests develop.
  July–August: Colonies grow, and attacks on honey bees increase.
• August–November: Predation pressure on honey bee colonies intensifies as hornet colonies reach peak activity.
• November–December: New queens disperse to overwinter, and colony activity declines.

YLH attacks managed honey bee colonies and wild pollinators, creating additional stress for beekeepers, particularly during late summer and fall.

4. Nest Removal and Control

• Nest removal is difficult because nests may be high in trees or located in inaccessible areas.
• Spring trapping of queens is a promising management strategy.
• Hive entrance barriers and electric harps are additional control methods being explored.
• There are currently no registered biological control products for YLH.
• Public awareness and reporting are critical. Many nests have been discovered through reports from residents and observant beekeepers.

5. Recommendations for Beekeepers

• Maintain strong, healthy, well-fed honey bee colonies.
• Combine weak colonies when appropriate and ensure adequate winter food stores.
• Avoid open feeding, as sugar syrup attracts hornets.
• Continue monitoring and managing Varroa mites.
• Learn to recognize Yellow-Legged Hornets and their nests, and report suspected sightings to appropriate agricultural authorities.Hope to see everyone at our next meeting on November 17, 2026, 6:30 pm to socialize. The official meeting begins at 7 pm: 106 E. Morgan St. Brevard, NC.

Do you have unanswered questions and want to learn more about the European and Yellow-legged Hornets? Dr. Ben Powell from the Apiculture and Pollinator Program with Clemson University will be the guest speaker at our October (third Tuesday of the month) meeting. Come learn how to protect our honey bees from these horrendous hornets!

Hope to see you at our bee club meeting on October 20, 2026, 6:30 pm to socialize. The official meeting begins at 7 pm: 106 E. Morgan St. Brevard, NC. 

September 15, 2026 there were about 16 people in attendance for our monthly Transylvania County Beekeepers Association meeting. Beth made a motion to approve the August 18, 2026 minutes as emailed out on August 24, 2026. Mark seconded. All were in favor.

We started the meeting off with a round table discussion from the attending beekeepers. One beekeeper had caught a swarm and was wondering the best way to treat it since he had a new queen that was just introduced. In order not to harm the new queen and/or disturb the new colony, the best mite treatment would be oxalic acid. Could utilize the drip method if he doesn’t have a vaporizer to treat the bees. 

Buncombe, Henderson and Transylvania Counties are working together to have a WNC Regional Beekeeping Conference, May 15, 2027. They are working together to have some great speakers. Mark your calendars and stay tuned for more information.

Randy Austin (treasurer of the bee club) gave a wonderful presentation on his encounters with the European Hornet and how to make traps. https://www.ncagr.gov/YLHTrapping From mid March to April, he caught emerging queens of both European hornets and yellow jackets. It is best to start trapping in March because this will keep the colonies from spreading since the queens are just emerging. Since then, Randy has caught hundreds of European hornets and thousands of yellow jackets. The same trap is utilized for catching the Yellow Legged Hornets (YLH). We currently don’t have any YLH in our area, but they are not too far away and are a lot more detrimental to the honey bees than the European Hornet. Make sure to keep your hive entrance reducers in place to keep out the hornets. ​

You only need a clear, plastic bottle, sharp knife or box cutter and twine to hang the traps. The larger the bottle, the less often you will have to clean it out. 

In making the trap, cut out an H design in the middle of the bottle. Leave the flap pulled out on the bottom of the opening the hornets will fly into. The H cut needs to be at least 1/2 to one inch. It is best to start your cut about 2-2 1/2 inches up from the bottom of the jar to leave ample room for the bait syrup. 

You need to register your traps with the NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services: https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/061deba97518462086a95784b2fe1312. 

Mix equal parts of grape juice to “dark” brown sugar. Dark sugar works better than “light” brown sugar. Heat the mixture up just enough to dissolve the sugar. Don’t boil, or over heat the mixture. You can also add some water to help dissolve the sugar instead of heating it up. Put just enough in the jar to fill up the bottom. This mixture is often called Georgia juice and doesn’t attract honey bees. 

Hang the traps eye level, so they are easy to access for cleaning out and refilling. Raccoons will get into the traps if you hang them too low. Tie the twine around the neck of the bottle and then hang it from a tree, at least 50 feet from your hives. Make sure to clean out the traps at least every two weeks. Pour most of the liquid into a strainer to verify what you have caught. Randy found out it is best not to wash out the jars. Just refill them with Georgia juice and hang them back up. Half of the old, fermented juice to half of fresh juice works best. 

If you catch any YLH’s, please make sure to contact Lewis Cauble (Lewis.Cauble@ncagr.gov or (828)230-4544). Southern yellow jacket queens have yellow legs and can be mistake for YLH. Best to check with Lewis when in doubt.

Randy had caught two hornets on some sticky fly paper. A Carolina Wren came and ate them. 

Dr. Powell from the Apiculture and Pollinator Program at Clemson University will be our October 20th meeting speaker. He will provide us with more in depth information regarding the hornets. Hope to see you on October 20th!

August 18, 2026 there were about twenty people in attendance for a presentation by Sean Collinsworth of Killer Bees Honey, who shared his experience as a Honey Sommelier. Sean started beekeeping at the young age of 12. He kept bees until he went off to college in California. Later Sean got back into beekeeping after finishing college and settling into a career in law enforcement. He is a level one honey sensory expert, and has been to Italy twice to the Natural Research Council (CNR). Sean now sells his honey all over the world from his bees in Lake Toxaway, NC, where he now resides on 75 acres. He has scaled down to 50 hives in 3 apiaries, now that he is semi-retired at age 70. https://www.killerbeeshoney.com/pages/our-story Killer Bees Honey is tested at a laboratory in New Zealand to ensure that it is pure.

The UK and Europe have strict restrictions on honey. The US gets most of its honey from Ecuador and Paraguay, via Vietnam, India, and China and imported honey does not have many restrictions. Mississippi is the only state in the US where the honey has to be made in Mississippi in order to be called local honey. Much of the honey that is purchased in US stores has been flash heated to 175 degrees for 15 minutes in processing plants. Heating honey denatures its enzymes. 

​Honey has over 600 volatile compounds. Honey should never be tasted using a metal spoon. The metal in your mouth changes the composition of the honey. You should use wood, plastic or organic glass to taste honey. When tasting honey samples, it is a good idea to take a sip of water in between tasting. Another good idea is to taste honey using thin slices of apple. 

After Sean’s presentation, we all had the chance to taste and vote on 13 jars of honey that were brought in by different members of the bee club. Each jar had the member’s name on the bottom, then wrapped in tin foil. No one knew whose honey was whose. Each tasting participant was provided a wooden spoon for each jar of honey and one black bean to place next to their favorite honey. Priscilla’s bee’s honey won the contest with six black bean votes. Sean then tasted most of the honey instructing the members on what makes a good honey. He also liked Priscilla’s bee’s honey as one of the best. ​

​Mary, Buddy and Linn were the lucky winners of the various door prizes (cucumbers, tomatoes, mums, etc.). Each ticket was just $2.

Randy has put many hours and hard work into the main door prize, which will be given to the lucky winner once the club recoups the cost of the beehive/house. Tickets for the beehive are just $10 a ticket. If you can’t make a meeting to purchase a ticket, you may mail a check payable to TC Beekeepers Association PO Box 92 Brevard, NC 28712. You do not need to be present to win. 

​Hope to see you at our next meeting on September 15, 2026, 6:30 pm to socialize. The official meeting begins at 7 pm: 106 E. Morgan St. Brevard, NC.

June 16, 2026 there were about 17 people in attendance. All approved the May 19, 2026 meeting minutes as emailed out on May 31, 2026. Randy stated we have a little over $1,000 in our association’s fund. The only future big expense is the website renewal of around $300 for the year. 

Shane Masterson, President of the Henderson County’s Beekeepers Association was the speaker. Henderson County meets on the third Monday of the month. All are welcome to attend https://hcbeekeepers.org/. 

Shane has been keeping bees for 10 years. He has around 100 hives and moves his colonies about three times a year for pollination. Shane sells bees and nucs. 

Shane’s presentation was “The Resourceful Nuc”. He usually has 10-20% of nucs on hand to utilize, except during the winter. Shane referred to Ian Steppler’s blog, “the nuc is a battery to your bee yard” https://www.youtube.com/@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog. 

Nucs can be created from several methods such as swarms and splits, queen cell splits, and egg cell splits (also known as walk away splits). It is important not to go into the hive too soon during a split. It may disturb the queen hatching process. When the queen gets ready to hatch out, she makes a buzz that is referred to as queen piping. You want a lot of open cells when making a split. Make sure to feed the split good, 1:1 sugar/water ratio. The split can be made from several hives. You want a frame of eggs in the middle, some capped brood, honey, drawn comb/foundation in the new split. Shane prefers to have two queen cells in his splits. You need to wait 21 days for the queen to hatch. If you go into the hive too soon, you may kill the queen. Iowa bees has a good website with free tools/calendars to use for making splits etc. https://www.iowabees.com/tools.

Nucs can be used to make extra colonies (add to existing colony numbers), for comb builder (use to draw new comb for future use in your operation), brood booster (harvest brood to boost numbers in production colonies), queen replacement (missing or failing queen), to fix problem colonies (laying workers, or a spicy colony, aggressive hive (i.e an aggressive hive)). 

Shane starts in August to get nucs bigger/stronger. He can add them to other hives in the future to help make them stronger. You can over winter nucs, but it is better to combine them with weaker hives.

 We had several winners of a few small door prizes: Christine, David K, and Linn. Rosemary won the uncapping station. Ken won the cart. Thank you to those who donated items. 

I wanted to share a site from the Honey Bee Health Coalition. It has some very good varroa mite management information: https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/resources/varroa-management/

Parker shared some information about a local gentleman who can wax dip your equipment. He may be a good speaker for one of our meetings. I never thought about wax dipping hive bodies.

​Hope to see you at our next meeting on July 21, 2026, 6:30 pm to socialize. The official meeting begins at 7 pm: 106 E. Morgan St. Brevard, NC. 

Hope to see you at our next meeting, June 16, 2026, 6:30 pm to socialize. The official meeting begins at 7 pm: 106 E. Morgan St. Brevard, NC. 

Shane Masterson, President of the Henderson County Beekeepers Association, will be the speaker for our June 16th meeting. His presentation will be titled, “The Resourceful NUC. Creating and using nucleus colonies to support your apiary management.” 

Thanks to generous donations and Randy assisting with the raffle, we have two very nice items for the raffle at this meeting: a gorilla cart and an uncapping station. 

The gorilla cart is used, but in very good condition. No repairs necessary. Raffle tickets for the cart will be $10. 

The uncapping station is made of clear plastic and comes with an electric uncapping knife and an uncapping tool. Raffle tickets for the uncapping station will be $5. 

There are also a number of nice door prizes. Please make sure to bring cash to the meeting for the raffle items and door prizes. ​

The following emails keep coming back as undeliverable with the message “exceeds message limit”: Cliff Price, Larry Gasperson, Mark Habel and Mary Caldwell. I am thinking the people have full email boxes is why the bee meeting announcements can’t go through. Please empty some of the emails in your in box, send an email to: tcbeekeepersassoc@gmail.com if you no longer wish to receive the bee club emails, or if one of these individuals has passed away, please email the bee association. Otherwise, you should be receiving the emails. Please make sure to add this email address to your contacts: tcbeekeepersassoc@gmail.com and check your spam box if you are having a difficult time receiving the emails. Thank you!

Some have mentioned not receiving the minutes and/or meeting announcements. Please make sure to add this email address to your address list and make sure you mark it as not spam. I am also not going to include pictures in with the emails to help them go through easier. If you would like to see pictures from the meeting, please look at the website: https://transylvaniacountybeekeepersassociation.com. I will post photos there. 

For the following people, I received an undeliverable email message: 451 4.7.1 74.125.82.193 You have exceeded your messaging limit. Please try again later. I am assuming their mailboxes are too full to receive emails? If you know the individuals, please let them know. If there is someone who has passed away, no longer keeping bees in our area, etc., please let me know and I will remove their name from the address book. Thank you!

Cliff Price

Larry Gasperson

Mark Habel

Mary Caldwell

Thank you to Rosemary for doing the following minutes from our last meeting! 

Summer in the Bee Yard

Presenter: Devin Gentry

Devin opened by reminding attendees that beekeeping is a hobby—and for some, a business—filled with mistakes, but that’s often how the best learning happens.

Devin has been beekeeping for 19 years. He started with two hives, both of which died during their first winter. His second set of hives survived, and he began catching swarms and making nucs. Today, he manages approximately 200 hives spread throughout Transylvania County, from Rosman to Asheville. He operates a queen-rearing program, makes and sells nucs, and focuses primarily on honey production.

Hive Health

Beekeepers should prioritize good hive health. During inspections, look for:

• Plenty of calm, active bees moving throughout the hive
• A solid brood pattern
• A queen laying consistently
• Emerging brood
• Adequate stores of pollen, nectar, and capped honey

Pollen provides protein, while nectar and honey provide carbohydrates. Both are essential for maintaining healthy colonies. If resources are lacking, supplemental feeding may be necessary.

If you remove the hive cover and notice bees that are sluggish or inactive, consider the possibility of a virus. Inspect bees closely for signs such as deformed, curled, or chewed-looking wings.

Sample for Varroa mites in both spring and fall, and treat when necessary. Varroa mites are commonly spread through drone populations.

For beekeepers with a small number of hives, drone brood trapping frames can be an effective management tool. Once the drone brood is capped, remove the frame and freeze it to kill mites before returning it to the hive.

Understand the various mite treatment options and how they may affect honey production. Always wear appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) when applying treatments.

Recommended Resources

• Honey Bee Health Coalition website for information on mite monitoring and treatment options.
• Randy Oliver’s website, Scientific Beekeeping, for research-based articles, videos, mite sampling methods, and pollination studies.

Swarm Prevention

Swarming is a natural process that occurs when colonies become overcrowded, run out of space, or have an aging queen.

During inspections:

• Ensure colonies have adequate room for expansion without providing excessive empty space.
• Check for backfilling in brood frames.
• During heavy spring nectar flows, workers may begin storing nectar and pollen in the brood nest when supers become full.

To reduce swarming pressure:

• Add additional space by rotating or adding boxes.
• Ensure center brood frames contain eggs and larvae.
• Place drawn comb adjacent to the brood nest, with pollen and honey stores toward the outside frames.
• If colonies remain crowded, consider making a split.

Queen Issues

Evaluate queens by observing whether they are laying a consistent brood pattern.

In general, Devin recommends requeening annually, particularly for colonies that require mite treatments twice per year, as treatments can place significant stress on queens.

Beekeepers should know the age of each queen. In spring, queenlessness is common due to swarming or supersedure events.

When inspecting hives, take care not to injure the queen while removing or replacing frames. One option is to safely cage the queen during inspections and release her afterward.

Also watch for signs of laying workers, which may indicate a queenless colony.

Honey Production

The wildflower honey flow is currently strong and is expected to taper off by mid-June.

Sourwood bloom typically begins in late June or early July. Honey harvest generally occurs between late July and early August.

Have a Game Plan

Ask yourself: What is your purpose in beekeeping?

Successful beekeepers should:

• Understand honey bee biology and developmental timelines
• Know the timing for egg development, queen cell emergence, and mating
• Keep detailed records for each hive, including inspections and treatment history

Most importantly, enjoy the craziness of beekeeping!

Hope to see you at our next meeting on June 16, 2026, 6:30 pm to socialize. The official meeting begins at 7 pm: 106 E. Morgan St. Brevard, NC.

Hope to see you at our next meeting on May 19, 2026, 6:30 pm to socialize. The official meeting begins at 7 pm: 106 E. Morgan St. Brevard, NC. 

Devin Gentry, president of the Transylvania County Beekeepers Association and owner of Bee. honey + hive, will be the featured speaker. His presentation, “Summer in the Bee Yard”, will focus on hive health, swarm prevention, honey production, and date-specific tasks that will help you be a more successful beekeeper in Western North Carolina.

April 21, 2026 there were 22 people in attendance. David made the motion to accept the March 17, 2026 minutes as emailed out on April 12, 2026. Ken seconded the motion. All were in favor. 

Our guest speaker was David Ellis. David spoke about when to split your bees. It is best to know what your purpose is when going into your bees. You don’t want to go into them too much. You can learn a lot from watching the bees from the outside of the hive. It is very disruptive when you go into a hive, especially on a cooler day. It is important to learn if you have eggs or not, then you don’t have to spend extra time in the hive searching for the queen. 

If you aren’t sure what to do for your bees, then do nothing. When making a split, make sure you don’t take away too much from the original hive. If you have a 10 frame hive with 8 good frames, don’t take more than 4 frames. If you are making a split from a 5 frame nuc, just take a couple of frames. Some purposes of splitting are: to grow your apiary, replace a winter loss, swarm prevention, and/or resource building-raise queens.

A small swarm could be the result of a virgin queen out to be mated. If you caught this swarm and formed a new hive, it could result in a queen less hive. It is not a good idea to split too early in the year when the weather may turn cold. If you wait until too late to split a hive, it may result in a swarm. 

When there is a wall to wall brood pattern and the hive is full, it is time to split, or make more room for your bees to prevent a swarm. Usually 4-5 weeks before the first honey flow is a good time to decide whether to split or make more room for your bees. If your goal is to have more honey, you don’t want to split too much. You may want to add more room. When making a split, the foundation goes on the top of the hive box. You should also feed the new split.

There are a lot of ways to make a split. The first mentioned Dave discussed was a “walk away split”. You take the top box off and move it away from the original hive. One box will have the queen. The other box will not. You need to make sure there are eggs in both boxes, or a queen will not be made in the queen-less box. This is a good way to split when you can’t find the queen. It is a quick and easy split. However, it also has the highest rate of failure and takes much longer to create a new hive. It can take as long as 6 weeks before there are new worker bees.

Most people do “mated queen splits”. You find the old queen. Isolate the queen before making the split using a queen excluder. Wait five days, if eggs are in the bottom hive, then that is where the queen is. You place a queen cage that has a newly mated queen inside the hive with no eggs. In 4-5 days the new queen should be out of the cage and laying. In this method you want most of the brood in the box where the new queen will be. 

With the “mated queen split” you can also shake all the bees down into the bottom box, add the queen excluder. After a few hours, take off the top box with the bees that have moved up into it and add the new queen cage. 

The third method Dave talked about was “queen cell splits”. It is like a “walk away split” with a queen cell you raised added to it. This method is used most by experienced beekeepers. The queen cells have to have a queen cell protector around them to protect the queen until she hatches out. 

Whenever you make a nuc, it must be moved away from your home bee yard, or else they will fly back to the original hive, especially in cold weather. 

Open brood has new, young bees. They are more likely to stay and accept new queens. Therefore, it is best to move the open brood into the newly created hive and leave the closed brood in the original hive. 

James Fredrickson was the lucky winner of the nuc as donated by our club president, Devin. David, Scott and Chris also won various door prizes. The following were the prizes won: A frame feeder donated by Rosemary, a hive tool and queen cage donated by Randy, an inner cover and jar of honey donated by Devin, Thank you for all the door prize donations!

Hope to see you at our next meeting, May 19, 2026

Oxalic Acid

March 17, 2026, fourteen people were in attendance. Parker made a motion to accept the February 17, 2026 minutes as emailed out February 27, 2026. Randy seconded the motion. All were in favor.

Randy stated we had $945 in the association’s fund. $450 of the fund are liabilities for the website and PO Box. 

Rosemary brought some Killian’s Irish beer and pretzels for a St. Patrick’s door prize. Question was, what do snakes and honey bees have in common? The lucky winner, Mark Habel stated that people are afraid of both. Thank you Rosemary for bringing some fun to the meeting.

Randy spoke of a new product that was approved September 2024 by the EPA, VarroxSan Oxalic Extended Release Strips. They cost around $30 for 20 strips. They can be used during a honey flow. Varroxsan is intended to be used in a hive with an already low mite count to keep them low. Long sleeves, gloves, eye protection and a Niosh approved respirator with a N, R or P filter are required. Treatment lasts 42-56 days. It is recommended to use one strip for every 2.5 frames of bees. No more than 4 strips per hive. However, testing shows 6-8 strips per 10 frame hive is more effective. Each strip is bent into a U shape and put in the brood area. It is a contact treatment, not vaporization.  Argentina has been utilizing strips similar to VarroxSan for years. Oxalic acid is a naturally occurring substance. For example, rhubarb leaves have oxalic acid in them.

David spoke about oxalic acid vaporization and drip treatments.  For vaporization, he treats with 1 gram per hive box using a “Mite-E-Vape” vaporizer. David drilled a 1/4 inch hole in the back of the bottom board to distribute the acid vapor. You need to add the bottom board if you have a screened bottom hive. Must use a respirator, just as the one Randy mentioned. The respirator needs to have filters for organic acid, paint solvents. Also needed are strong gloves that can take the heat. It only takes a minute to treat each hive. It only impacts the mites on the bees, not the capped brood. If you have capped brood, it is not a good mite treatment. It is a good treatment to use in the winter months. You also need a loose cluster of bees. Therefore, it is not a good idea to treat them on a freezing cold day. You can also do a dribble method which involves putting sugar water that has oxalic acid in it on the bees that are in between the frames. David uses a 60 cc syringe to add the acid. It is also a good method to use on a swarm of bees, or a new package of bees that you get before there is sealed brood. https://entomologytoday.org/2026/03/20/honey-bee-swarms-spread-invasive-mite-tropilaelaps-mercedesae/

The Honey Bee Health Coalition https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/resources/hive-health-best-management-practices/ is a good website to discover what treatment is best for you to use on your bees in controlling their mite population. 

Another good recommendation is to take your cup of bees that you intend to test for mites and put them in a ziplock bag in the freezer. Once they are dead, then do an alcohol wash. 

We had the raffle drawing at the end of the meeting for everything except the Nuc. The drawing for the Nuc will be at the end of the April meeting. The Nuclear will need to be picked up on May 9th. Mark Habel won the Zion as donated and made by Randy Austin. Caroline Thompson won the bee suit. Ken Adamson won the uncapping knife. 

Hope to see you at our next meeting on April 21, 2026, 6:30 pm to socialize. The official meeting begins at 7 pm: 106 E. Morgan St. Brevard, NC.