Hello beeks,

Myself and K. Ruby are having a get-together for top bar hive beekeepers in Berkeley/East Bay area on Feb 7th. I think the meetup will be at my house in west Berkeley unless we have an unusually high rate of RSVP's in which case I"ll find another site nearby.

Wednesday, Feb 7
7-9 PM
RSVP to girlmark_list_email@localb100.com for exact address

If you have photos, gear to show off, or any other object of discussion, feel free to bring it (we don't have a projector but can probably set up a largescreen computer monitor for viewing digital photos if you bring them on a CD).

I have a hive in the backyard (not that we'll be able to see much of it in the evening) and I'll bring an empty screen bottom TBH and some of those cool cutout-handling top bars (see this thread: www.beesource.com/cgi-bin/u...matebb.cgi "Tx_ashhurst" from the beesource forum invented.

I want to discuss varroa strategies, small cell and natural cell beekeeping (see bwrangler.farvista.net/ for more information on all these things)

Ruby wants to discuss the following:
"I would like to network on who has strong colonies they'd be willing
to split come spring. I have bought commercial hygenic bees the last
2 years and have not had good luck with them through the winter--not
mites as far as I know--just dwindling populations until there's not
enough bees to maintain the hive...

I know folks have lots of different experiences with our east bay
sweet ants--that might also be a topic to share.

I have a few cool bee photos--mostly of honey bees but also a few
shots of wild bees that people might like to see. "