What's New
01/29-NWNJBA Movie Meeting Confirmation
01/21-NJ Apiarist Winter Feeding Advisory
01/15-Feeding Insight for Winter
01/15-NJBA Meeting Info

Who We Are
The NORTHWEST branch of the New Jersey Beekeepers Association is a regional organization of anywhere from 40 to 60 bee hobbyist and sideliners (less than 300 hives). Our members generally reside in the Hunterdon, Warren and Somerset counties but membership is not limited to this region of the state.

NWNJBA Scholarships Scholarship funds are available through the NWNJBA for youths interested in the Rutgers Extension Bee-ginner's beekeeping class. If you are interested in submitting a request, or know of a youth with an interest in beekeeping who would like to be considered, submit a two to three paragraph stating your general interest in beekeeping. Submissions can be sent to the NWNJBA President Charles Ilsley by clicking this link. If you have any questions, about the scholarship program please reach out to Charles via phone (on our contact page) or e-mail. s

NWNJBA Newsletters

Click the image to read the
2011 Spring Newsletter
Fall 2010
Spring 2010
May-June 2009
Jan-March 2009
May-June 2008
March-April 2008

Club Hive Photos 2/27/11
NWNJBA VP Bob Kloss checked in on the club's mentoring hive and gave them a little sugar.

Welcome to the Northwest New Jersey Beekeepers Association (NWNJBA) We would like to welcome you to the home page of the NORTHWEST branch of the New Jersey Beekeepers Association. We maintain this website to share information with both the public and our membership on the topic of beekeeping. Here you can find the clubs schedule of events, educational resources, and how to contact the NWNJBA among other things. We thank you for taking the time visit our website and we hope that you find it a useful resource.
NWNJBA Winter Movie Night - Confirmed
Come and join us for a video presentation on how to perform splits of your hives. Snacks and refreshments will be provided.

Event Details
Location: Old York Cellars Winery - 80 Old York Road, Ringoes NJ 08551
Date and Time: February 9th - 7:15 to 8:45
Agenda: Video on Splits and Nucs
Click Here for Meeting Details
Winter Feeding Advisory January 19th, 2012 - New Jersey State Apiarist Tim Schuler has distributed a bulletin to NJ Beekeepers advising to watch hives for depletion of food stores.

Tim Schuler: I have received some reports of scale hives that are losing a lot of weight. I am seeing a lot of colonies that are running out of food.
Continued >
Winter Feeding Insight We’ve had some warm days in December and outright balmy days throughout January. Most report that bees were flying and some were outright active – not just cleansing flights. Hopefully your bees had plenty of stores for winter and...
Read More>
NJBA (State) Winter Meeting The NJBA Winter Meeting is posted on their website. 2/25 is the date and it will be hosted at the Rutgers Eco Complex. Debora Delaney, the Assistant Professor of Entomology & Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware will be the featured speaker. Cost is $20 in advance (Deadline 1/21) or $25 at the door. The meeting will also include election of officers and a review of the annual honey show awards announcements.
NJBA Website Information: Link
NJBA 2012 Honey Show NJBA 2012 Honey Show Feb 2, 2012 - From NJBA: Now’s your chance to show off your hard work and make an entry (or entries) in the NJBA Annual Honey Show! It’s very easy to prepare entries, and...
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Maryann Frazier Pesticide Talk

Kevin recorded a session recently hosted with via the Bucks County Beekeepers Association with Maryann Frazier. Maryann spoke on the topic of Pesticides and Pollinators along with how to protect your colonies. The audio was produced for the Beekeeper's Corner Podcast and be obtained here.

During the podcast episode a recent article on the topic is mentioned. It is here:

Article Link: Pesticides and their involvement in colony collapse disorder

NWNJBA YouTube Channel

YouTube Channel - http://www.youtube.com/nwnjba

We've been hard at work placing our video collection in YouTube for consumption. Using YouTube makes the video access more viable for mobile consumption and more compatible with computing platform differences from Microsoft and Apple.

We'll continue to move our videos up and use this as a resource to get some quick hit videos up of timely activities that pop up.

Quick Links
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Bee Podcast

Hive Insulation Box Construction and Design - "Mountain Camp" Style Feeder Candy Board Management Hive Arrangement (15:48) - January 12th, 2011 - NWNJBA members Roger Gares and Kevin Inglin feature.

NWNJBA Fall Meeting Follow Ups

Thanks to all in attendance for the NWNJBA Fall meeting. Here are a few follow up links related to some of the topics mentioned in the meeting:

Scientific Beekeeping Bee Nutrition - Link
Ventilation/Insulation Box Plans from Honey Run Apiaries - Link .

Bear Fence Seminar Coverage

NJBA member Cathy Blumig hosted a clinic on how to deter damage to beehives by bears and other wildlife using electric fencing on Wednesday, June 1, 2011. NWNJBA member Kevin Inglin attended the session and captured video for those unable to attend. Thanks to Cathy for hosting!

Video | Bear Fence Seminar (60:00) - June 1st, 2011 - 2 part presentation from Greg Miller of Gallagher Fence Company.
Small Size Video (Smaller Download - 320x240)

Varroa Management Using Drone Brood Removal

First Vice President Bob Kloss presented the use of drone brood frames at the late spring meeting on May 21st. We have the audio along with the PDF Version of the PowerPoint Presentation shown that day.

Audio Recording - Click to Play or Right Click to Download (choose Save Target As and save to a location on your computer.

Where is the Yahoo List/Forum started by Roger Gares?

One member asked at the 2011 late spring meeting, where the heck is the NWNJBA Yahoo forum that Roger manages anyway? For those who are new or not aware, the NWNJBA and now some of our closest friends participate in web based freeform online forum. Announcements, updates, pictures, just about anything goes (and often does!) on the forum. So what is the web address. Before we tell you that, remember this... Look at the navigation for this website across the top of the page. There's a FORUM button there. Come here and you can always get there! The real address is http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/northwestnewjerseybeekeepers/

Tip! Now don't get confused if you go there and you don't see the list of posts. Yahoo wants you to be logged in. If you are not logged in, do that and then click on My Groups in the upper right hand corner of Yahoos page to see the group and participate. Now, go on over and post something!

Would you know what to do with a swarm?

Honey Bee Swarm NWBA Webmaster Kevin Inglin was faced with that question first hand. Kevin took the opportunity to shoot video of the swarm capture and offered narration along the way.

You can check out that video and some of our others on our video page or you can click here to access it directly.

The video shows capturing a swarm in a hive box and the iterations it took to get the whole swarm settled into a new hive body.

Having trouble keeping that Smoker Lit?

Honey Bee Swarm Sometimes keeping a smoker lit is a little more challenging that one might think. We have a video that gives a quick tutorial on how to start a smoker and keep it going.

The key tips are:
- Get a good fire in the bottom
- Add the fuel and let some of it light too.
- Tamp down some additional fuel until it is packed down.
Check out the video tutorial here.