The Pike County Beekeepers have been a strong indicator of the possibilities for honey sales for the region and as a basis for multiple farmers to increase profits.  At current prices honey is bringing from $18 to $28 per quart.  Because of the success of the Beekeepers, it was decided to do a training on splitting hives & trapping swarms.  This was done to assist the local beekeepers in expanding and preventing loss of bees through the use of splitting techniques and purchasing swarm traps that could be checked out by producers to increase their number of hives.  Trainings were done on splitting hives & how to re-queen the new hive with queen cells, while splitting the bees to accommodate both the old hive and the new hive.  At the same time, a training was done on using swarm traps.  How to decide where to place them and how to use the traps.  The Pike County Beekeepers membership were able to trap and re-hive 117 new swarms.  We are assuming that this years crazy weather has aided the bees in being very prolific swarmer's.  Using current pricing for purchase of "nucs" @ the advertised prices of ~$200/nuc, this has been a bonus of $23,000 worth of bees for the membership for an investment of $300 in swarm traps & training time.  This addition of bees along with our monthly trainings, should have the beekeepers in great shape for the future.