I need help from the Bee-L community. 

I need 16, preferably 24 colonies of 8 frame or more bees, in Lincoln area of NE, by end of next week.  Monday of this week, we were told that we got funding to conduct a corn crop dust study near Lincoln.  Marion Ellis retired and sold most of the UNL hives.  I've a few colonies in Missoula, MT, but I've only got 8; we had two years of drought, and that's a long haul for a small number of colonies.  We are having real problems reaching any NE beekeepers - everyone seems out of reach.  We are more than willing to buy/rent, will feed pollen sub and syrup, return after corn planting - good way to build colonies.  We'll pay for any losses.  

NE is earlier than most other corn states - the typical corn planting period is from April 10 through May 10.  We need to have bees in place at 8 sites before April 10, unless the season is running very late.  I will have two people in Lincoln next week.  We would prefer getting all of the colonies from one source, but we're willing to take whatever someone can provide - 2-3 here, 10 there, etc.  Or buy packages to make up 16-24 colonies, but we'd prefer established colonies.

A few weeks ago, we saw a call for proposals with a very short fuse.  We applied.  Two weeks ago we were asked to revise.  We did, and MONDAY were told we were a go.  That's good, it gives us a chance under funding from the Corn Dust Research folks - which include both  of the US national bee associations to take another look at the crop dust issue, add another region of the corn belt to the three areas studied by others last year.  But, we're far nearer the deadline to get the project going than we expected, and we now find that we desperately need bees.

Thanks  Jerry

J.J. Bromenshenk
Bee Alert
Missoula, Mt



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