Latest News

• March Meeting

  March 3, 2020

  Our speaker for our March 12th meeting will be Etienne Nadeau. Etienne is a Master Beekeeper, queen breeder and a very experienced beekeeper. He will talk about making splits which is a very timely topic. We have had a mild winter and colonies are building up early and the potential for swarms is high. Splits are a great way to discourage swarms and get free colonies.

  The meeting will be at the normal time and place, Chowan County Extension Office. Doors open at 6:30 PM and the meeting starts at 7 PM.

• February Meeting is on different day this month, February 6th at the Chowan County Extension Office

  February 3, 2020

  Our February meeting date is different this month due to the primary elections. Our speaker will be Pat Mansfield of Mansfield Lilies. Pat will talk about highway meadows and strip planting for pollinators.

  Visitors are welcome. The meeting starts at 7PM and the doors will be open at 6:30.

• Bee school starts

  January 19, 2020

  BOCC bee school started in conjunction with COA on January 14th.

  

  . A total of seventeen students enrolled.

• Bee School Starting January 14th

  January 3, 2020

  

• December Meeting

  December 8, 2019

  There is no meeting for December. Our next meeting will be January 9th 2020.

• Christmas Trees In The Park

  December 7, 2019

  Julie & Rick Murpyy and Elizabeth Towe did a great job putting together our tree for the Christmas Trees In The Park at Colonial Park in Edenton. The tree is bee themed and has a lot of detail. Check it out when you are in town.

  

• November Meeting

  November 17, 2019

  Our President Elect Julie Murphy presents Rick Coor and honorary membership to Beekeepers of Chowan County and a thank you honorarium after his talk on queen rearing at the club level.

  Julie was elected President for next year. The other officers elected for next year are Stacy Mariner Vice President, Mary Morris Secretary, and Ron Cummings Treasurer.

  We are very excited to have such an outstanding group of individuals assume leadership of the club.

  

• November Meeting

  November 11, 2019

  Our November 14th meeting speaker will be NCSBA past President Rick Coor and he will speak about queen rearing. Rick has raised queens for several years and is very knowledgable. He was a primary developer of the Born and Bred Program on which we based our queen rearing program.

  This will be the final monthly meeting for 2019 as there is no meeting in December.

  Doors will open at 6:30PM.

• October Meeting

  October 8, 2019

  Our October 10th meeting will be a special presentation. Mary Morris and Chef Leslie Lippincott will do a class on cooking with honey. They have discuss the advantages of using honey for cooking and then everyone will take part in preparing several recipes to cook with honey and then we will consume the results. This will bee a fun meeting.

• Chowan County Fair Awards

  October 2, 2019

  Beekeepers of Chowan County won the Blue Ribbon as well as the Best in Show award for our display booth at the Chowan County Fair.

  

• September Meeting

  September 13, 2019

  We had a fabulous speaker in Leigh-Kathryn Bonner for of September meeting. Leigh-Kathryn is the founder and CEO of BeeDowntown in Durham. She gave a memorable presentation on what she has done with BeeDowntown. As an Inc magazine and Forbes 30 under 30 award winner we were very fortunate to have her speak and she is a truley special young woman.

  

• September Meeting

  September 5, 2019

  For our September 12th meeting we will have a very special speaker. Leigh-Kathryn Bonner is a 4th generation beekeeper and the CEO of Bee Downtown in Durham. She graduated from NCSU and started a business managing bee hives for businesses in Durham. This has expanded to over 250 hives in cities in the Southeast. She made the Forbes 30 under 30 list and was recently The News & Observer “Tar Heel of The Week”. She has done a Ted Talk and is truly a young superstar.

  The doors will open at 6:30PM and the meeting will start at 7PM. The public is welcome.

• August Meeting

  August 17, 2019

  Master Gardner Elizabeth Towe gave an excellent presentation at our August meeting on planting for honey bees. She gave an extensive list of planting throughout the year for honey bees.

  

• Golden Achievement Award

  August 13, 2019

  The Golden Achievement Program (GAP) is intended to be high recognition of the efforts of a chapter and its members to advancing the practice, science and community of beekeeping through the year. Sharing the accomplishments of our chapters is the key to strengthening our NCSBA organization.

  Beekeepers of Chowan County qualified for a $300 award from the NCSBA for our efforts on 2018. It is highly unusual for a chapter to qualify for this award in their first year. This was made possible by a lot of effort by our membership. Elizabeth Towe did an outstanding job putting our book together and accepted the award on behalf of the chapter.

  

• August Meeting

  August 5, 2019

  Our August meeting will be August 15th at the Cowan County Agriculture Building. The meeting is a week later than normal because the NCSBA Summer Conference is being held August 8-10. The September meeting will be September 12th.

• Queen Yard Moving Day

  July 28, 2019

  We had a good turnout on July 27 to move our queen yard to Rick and Julies Murphy’s home. It was anticipated the move could be done in three hours and with all the help it was completed in an hour and forty-five minutes including travel time.

  We started the queen rearing project in May with no bees and no equipment. Today we have 7 bee colonies and the equipment for a cell builder hive and 12 mating nucs. Next year we will start rearing queens in late April and we should be well ahead if the curve.

  

• July Meeting

  July 12, 2019

  Our local NC Bee Inspector, Adolphus Leonard spoke at July meeting and gave a great presentation on how to identify queen problems. Adolphus always gives an informative talk and Thursday was no exception.

  

• July Meeting

  July 8, 2019

  Our meeting this month will be on Thursday July 11th at 7 PM at the Chowan County Agriculture Building. The doors will be open at 6:30 and our speaker will be Adolphus Leonard, the NC bee inspector for our area. Adolphus has a wealth of knowledge about bees and he always gives a very informative talk.

  The certified test will be administered at 6:30 for anyone who wants to take it.

  Guests are welcome.

• June Meeting

  June 12, 2019

  Our June meeting will not be held June 13th. Our June meeting was our annual picnic on June 8th. Our next meeting will be July 11th.

• Chowan County Harvest Festival

  June 2, 2019

  Ron Cummings led of crew of Sandi Griffin, John Marshal and Buzz Griffin for our booth at the Harvest Festival. We had the opportunity to talk about honey bees to large number of people.

  

• COA Field Day

  June 2, 2019

  On Saturday June 1st we had a field day at the COA hives. Leslie Lippincott went through the hives to show other beekeepers how her 2019 packages were doing and give them something to compare their hives with.

  

• Our new queen

  June 1, 2019

  Our first queen from our queen rearing program is making her debut as a new Mom. We grafted 4 queens on May 4th and three of them are currently laying eggs.

  

• May 9th meeting

  May 10, 2019

  We had a great meeting last night. Dr. Margaret Donahoe gave an outstanding presentation on bee sting safety. She was also able to write scripts for anyone needing epinephrine.

  

• Cheryl Newbold gave a touching presentation on telling the bee of the passing of Shirley Marshall.

  May 10, 2019

  

• Benjie Brown made a special presentation at our meeting to Cheryl Newbold of a giant sized smoker so she can beat Paul in the picnic smoker competition next month.

  May 10, 2019

  

• Queen yard setup

  April 27, 2019

  On Saturday w BOCC took a big step in developing our Born & Bread queen rearing program. We assembled and positioned our mating nucs and went through two of our donor hives. Our first queen graft is scheduled for May 4th.

  

  

• Paradise Road Cleanup

  April 23, 2019

  This morning we had 17 volunteers pick up trash on Paradise Road one mile on either side of highway 17. Elizabeth Towe was almost eaten by a 14 inch garter snake but she survived with a story to tell. You wouldn’t think people would enjoy picking up trash along the highway but everyone seemed to have a good time and the Edenton roadways have a little less litter.

  

• Assembly day

  April 23, 2019

  How long does it take to assemble 13 hive bodies and put foundation in 130 frames? If you have 11 great volunteers it takes 1 hour and 15 minutes. We kicked off our first day of our queen rearing program on Saturday, April 20 assembling the equipment. The volunteers had a lot of fun putting the equipment together and it went very fast. We will graft our first batch of queens next week.

  

• Field Day

  April 13, 2019

  We had 7 brave souls come to our apiary inspection at Leslie Lippincott’s COA apiary. The rain held off long enough to get through the first hive with some great looks at the eggs, larva, capped brood and the queen. The rain stopped cooperating when we opened the second hive and we had to curtail the inspection. The girls were getting upset and the beekeepers were getting wet..

  

• April Meeting

  April 12, 2019

  Our April meeting went very well. Etienne Nadeau gave and outstanding presentation on doing splits. We also received approval from the NCSBA for our Born & Bred Queen Rearing program. We had a good number of people volunteer to work on the program and we are preparing for our first queen graft on May 4th. Our raffle was one of the best yet with a special thanks to Paul and Cheryl Newbold for the items they donated.

  

• April Meeting

  April 11, 2019

  Our April meeting will feature Etienne Nadeau discussing splits. Doors open at 6:30 visitors are welcome.

• What do 400,000 bee look like?

  April 2, 2019

  We received

  

  our bee packages on Monday

• Field Day

  March 31, 2019

  We had a great field day today at Kenny Hobbs apiary. Many of our bee school attended and had an opportunity to see a hive inspection, a varroa powered sugar shake, a colony split and a bee package installation. After observing a package installation everyone had a chance to actually install a bee package. Big thank you to Kenny for inviting us.

  

  

  

  use to visit his apiary.

• Beekeepers of Chowan County submit book to Golden Achievement Program

  March 8, 2019

  Elizabeth Towe and Julie Murphy turned in our book for the GAP. This shows the activities of BOCC during 2018. By qualifying in all the required categories the club can be awarded $300 from the NCSBA. The book will be evaluated and winers will be awarded the grants at the summer NCSBA Conference. Elizabeth did a tremendous amount of work collecting all of the information from members for the book.

  

• Final Introduction to Beekeeping Class

  February 27, 2019

  We finished the final bee school class tonight. We had 15 students complete the class. Thirteen people took the Certified Beekeeper test and everyone passed.

  We discussed varroa mite treatments and demonstrated hive assembly. Elizabeth Towe conducted a review and certified testing.

  

  Students ordered 13 bee packages for April 1st delivery.

• Bee School Class

  February 20, 2019

  We had the fourth session of our Introduction to Beekeeping class Tuesday night. Paul Newbold, NCSBA President spoke to the class about the association. Stacy Mariner, the NCSBA Regional Director gave a presentation about diseases, pest and treatments. We also covered swarms, laying workers, robbing, queen replacement and pesticides.

  Our final class will be Tuesday February 26th. We will demonstrate hive assembly and have a detailed discussion on varroa mites. We will also have a certified test review followed by certified testing.

  

• February Meeting

  February 15, 2019

  Our Valentine Day February meeting went very well with 25 people attending. We had some good Valentine snacks and Joe Hoggard gave a great presentation on treatment free beekeeping. The March meeting will be on pollen and nectar sources in our area.

  

• February Meeting

  February 13, 2019

  Our February meeting will be Thursday night February 14th at the Chowan County Agriculture Building. Joe Hoggard will discuss natural beekeeping. In keeping with the day we will have Valentine featured treats. Doors will open at 6:30.

• Bee School Class

  February 13, 2019

  Tuesday night we continued our bee school for new beekeepers. Julie Murphy covered installing a package and the progression of the first year in beekeeping. We also covered inspecting a hive. Elizabeth Towe conducted a study session for certified testing.

  

• Our second class of the bee school was February 6th and it very well. Etienne Nadeau gave an outstanding presentation on hive types and beekeeping equipment.

  February 6, 2019

  

• Introduction to Beekeeping class

  January 30, 2019

  Our introduction to beekeeping class in cooperation with College of the Albemarle started January 29th. We have 17 students signed up and the first class went very well. The class will continue each Tuesday night through the end of February. The students should be prepared to take the certified beekeeper test at the end of the class. Pictures below is Julie Murphy teaching the basic anatomy class.

  

• January 10th meeting

  January 11, 2019

  We had a great meeting last night. Cheryl Newbold gave an outstanding presentation on the bee dance complete with costume, props and video.

  NCSBA President talked about what was going on with the state association and the current varroa problem.

  

  

  current threat.

• January meeting

  January 9, 2019

  Our first meeting of 2019 will be Thursday night January 10th. Cheryl Newbold will talk about the bee dance. Guests are welcome.

• Bee School

  December 22, 2018

  Beekeepers of Chowan County in conjunction with Collage of The Albemarle is offering a bee school for beginners beginning January 29th. The class will meet from 6pm to 8pm each Tuesday night through February 26th. The class will cover the information a new beekeeper needs to be successful in the first year of beekeeping. Beekeepers of the Chowan County will assign a mentor to each new beekeeper to help through the first year. The cost will be $40 and includes membership in North Carolina State Beekeepers Association and Beekeepers of Chowan County. It is recommended students obtain a copy of Beekeeping for Dummies 4th edition for the class. Be prepared to be amazed and have some fun!

  Signup information is on the flyer below.

  

• Newest Journeyman

  December 14, 2018

  Congratulations to our newest recipient of a Journeyman Certificate. Last night the NCSBA Regional Director Stacey Mariner presented Julie Murphy with her Journeyman Certificate. Julie worked very hard to obtain her certification and excelled at every requirement.

  

  

• Our newest member.

  November 30, 2018

  Welcome to our newest member Paxton Blake Parker. Born July 12, 2018. Congratulations Meg & Matt Parker.

  

• November 8th meeting

  November 9, 2018

  We had a great meeting last night. We elected Julie Murphy to Vice-President and Buzz Griffin to President for next year.

  We had a good program on resources and gadgets with participation by several members.

  We had a special guest in Bob Stienberg the Senator elect for the 1st district. We discussed the importance of funding for the NC State Bee Lab in the next session of the legislature. Bob was very receptive and is well aware of the importance of honey bees.

  

• November Meeting

  November 1, 2018

  Our November meeting will be November 8th at Chowan Co. Agriculture Building 730 N. Granville St, Edenton, NC 27932.

  The program will be on beekeeping resources and gadgets.

  Visitors are welcome.

• October 20th Field Day

  October 21, 2018

  We had our second oxalic acid demo field day at Elizabeth Towes hives on October 20th. In spite of a few sprinkles we had some fun learning how to apply oxalic acid.

  

  

• Oxalic Acid Demo Field Day

  October 13, 2018

  On October 12th we held our first of two oxalic acid field days. We had 7 people attend to learn how to treat hives with oxalic acid vapor. Elizabeth Towe allowed us to use her hives for the demonstration. There was a strong emphasis on safety when using OA as a varroa treatment.

  We will have another OA field day at Elizabeth’s hives on October 20th.

  

• October Meeting

  October 13, 2018

  In spite of a tropical storm we had good attendance at our October 11th meeting. Etienne Nadeau did a great talk on preparing hives for winter. Dr. Ashley Kent gave a very informative talk on bee sting safety and avoiding beekeeper overheating.

  We also celebrated our one year club anniversary and Julie Murphy prepared a delicious cake with what else but honey.

  

  gave a great talk on preparing our hives for winter. Dr. Ashley Kent gave a very informative talk on bee sting safety and avoiding beekeeper overheating.

  We also celebrated our club’s birthday and Julie Murphy made an excellent cake with what else honey.

  

  

• October 11 meeting

  October 10, 2018

  Our meeting Thursday night will feature Etienne Nadeau reviewing winter preparation and Dr Ashley Kent will talk about bee sting safety and the dangers of beekeeper overheating.

• Edenton Farmers Market

  October 9, 2018

  Julie Murphy and Elizabeth Towe in cooperation with College of the Albemarle had a booth at the Edenton Farmers Market on October 6th. Leslie Lippencott helped them prepare cakes made with honey and also made honey some cider. They talked to people about honey bees, the club and our planned bee school. They were able to generate a lot of interest for the club.

  

• Edenton Farmers Market Fall Festival

  September 28, 2018

  In conjunction with College of the Albemarle we will have a booth at the EFM Fall Festival on October 6th from 8-12. Come by learn a little about bees and try some food cooked with honey.

  The location is 200 N Broad Street Edenton.

• Blue Ribbon

  September 27, 2018

  Elizabeth Towe and Julie Murphy put together an outstanding booth at the Chowan County Fair representing Beekeepers of Chowan County. The result was a Blue Ribbon. Great job Julie and Elizabeth!

  

• September Meeting

  September 18, 2018

  The September meeting has been canceled. Our normal meeting place is not available this week and if we had a meeting next week our October meeting would be only two weeks later. The BOCC Board unanimously decided it would be better to cancel our meeting this month.

• September 13th meeting.

  September 12, 2018

  Due to hurricane Florence the September 13th meeting has been postponed. An announcement will be made early next week about a new date for the meeting.

• Is Beekeeping For You?

  August 31, 2018

  Have you ever wondered if you could become a beekeeper?

  In cooperation with College of The Albemarle we are offering informational classes in “Is Beekeeping For You?” These classes will give you a good idea of what is is required for someone to become a successful beekeeper. The classes will be at the Edenton COA campus at 118 Blades Street, Edenton, NC. The classes will be on September 5th at 9AM and September 6th at 6PM in room 411. There is no charge for these classes and you only need to attend one class. Come see what beekeeping is all about.

  

• August meeting

  August 10, 2018

  We had a great meeting tonight. Lot of upcoming outreach events were discussed. The next scheduled event is at the COA on September 5&6 Is Beekeeping For You. More later on this event.

  Etienne Nadeau gave a great presentation on late summer beekeeping issues. This was a timely presentation and it was vert well received. A big thanks to Etienne.

  

• August meeting

  August 3, 2018

  Our August 9th meeting will feature Etienne Nadeau talking about late summer beekeeping issues. Etienne was formally awarded his Master Beekeeper Certificate at the Summer NCSBA Conference and is an excellent speaker.

• Edendon, Chowan, Recreation Discovery Day Camp Presentation

  August 2, 2018

  Julie Murphy and Elizabeth Towe gave an outstanding presentation today on the life cycle jobs of honey bees to approximately 20 children. This is part of the discovery day program for Edenton, Chowan summer recreation program. The children were able to role play the different jobs the bees have in the colony. The program was very well received.

  

• Shepard-Pruden Library Presentation

  July 31, 2018

  

  Julie Murphy and Buzz Griffin gave a presentation to about 40 children and 20 adults at the Sheparf Pruden Library on July 31st about the life cycle of honey bees and their progression of jobs. The presentation was well received and the Friends of the Library gave a donation to Beekeepers of Chowan County.

• First annual BOCC Picnic was huge success at Julie & Rick Murphy's estate

  June 17, 2018

  

  

  

  

• June Meeting

  June 3, 2018

  Our June meeting will not be held on our regular date of June 10th. Instead our meeting will take place as a chapter picnic on Saturday, June 19th at the home of Julie and Rick Murphy.

• Edenton Town Council meeting

  May 30, 2018

  On Tuesday May29th we had a good turnout of members who addressed the council in an effort to modify the Edenton Bee Ordinance to make it more beekeeper and bee friendly. The council seemed interested in making changes and Town Planner, Elizabeth Bryant said we would be given the opportunity to suggest changes to a new draft of the ordinance.

• May Meeting

  May 14, 2018

  Cheryl and Paul Newbold gave great talks at our May meeting. Cheryl told us in detail how to make creamed or spun honey and she gave everyone samples of her own recipe. Everyone really loved her recipe and the presentation.

  Paul gave a great presentation on Africanized honey bees. Where they come from and how they are different.

  

  

• Community Outreach

  April 25, 2018

  Beekeepers of Chowan County can provide speakers to educate and inform groups about the beneficial contribution of honey bees to agriculture and food production as well as common beekeeping practices. Contact Elizabeth Towe at 252-333-6965 or Julie Murphy at 252-221-2112 to discus the type of presentation you are interested in.

• May 10th Meeting

  April 24, 2018

  We will have two speakers at out May 10th meeting. Paul Newbold will talk about africanized honey bees, how and if they will affect us. Cheryl Newbold will talk about how to prepare honey for honey competitions. She will also talk about how to make creamed honey.

  Cheryl is our Regional Director and Paul is in chairman of the Master Beekeeper Program and both are master beekeepers. The have a wealth of knowledge about beekeeping and can answer questions about anything beekeeping.

• Elizabeth Towe and Julie Murphy kickoff our community outreach

  April 13, 2018

  Beekeeper members Elizabeth Towe and Julie Murphy were invited to speak to a co-op home school group that meets at the Open Door Church in Edenton to talk Honey bees. The home school group contacted BoCC via our new FB page. The students ranging in age from 6-13 have been studying honey bees and requested a beekeeper visit to help broaden their knowledge of honey bees, the role of the beekeeper and learn what they can do to help the honey bee. The students were able to be hands on with a large array of beekeeping equipment; deeps, mediums, frames with foundation through various stages of comb building and the tools carried in a typical beekeepers kit. With our bee suits donned, we engaged the students with some common questions; how does a beekeeper take care of bees? Where do bees live? How many types of honey bees live in a hive? What do honey bees do? What is honey and how do bees make it? These kids came prepared, they were quick to raise their hands to answer and asked great questions. The highlight of the visit was our newly built observation hive. The students eager and curious, quickly surrounded the hive, touching the sides gently to feel the warmth and hear the hum coming from the bees fanning themselves to cool down. After a brief honey tasting experience, we passed out wildflower seed packets for the students to grow and encourage honey bees to visit them.

  

• Instructions for installing bee packages

  April 8, 2018

  Here is a link to the instructions for installing bee packages.

• Rick Coor meeting presentation

  March 9, 2018

  

  Rick Coor gave a great presentation on package installation and queen health.

• Adolphus Leonard gave a program on beekeeping issues in our area

  February 9, 2018

  Adolphus included in his presentation a video on the life cycle of the varroa mite.

• Bee Packages

  February 1, 2018

  If you are planning to order bee packages from Rick Coor it’s time to act. Contact Rick via email rdcoor@gmail.com or phone at 919 738 7638 and let him know how many packages you need and he will reserve them for you. You will need to send him a check by the end of February. The packages are $115 each and include a marked queen. Send the check to Spring Bank Bee Farm, 298 Spring Bank Road, Goldsboro, NC 27534. Let Rick know you are part of Beekeepers of Chowan County. Ron Cummings will pick up the packages on April 8th and deliver them to the Chowan County Agriculture Building for pickup.

• Cheryl Newbold presents beekeepers with their charter from NCSBA.

  January 12, 2018