This summer has been so hot I haven't been able to use the Formic Acid I wanted to use when I first saw mites on my girls.
I got a whole new colony this spring because the one from last year froze during a really brutally cold winter; and this one is far more gentle. Not quite as productive, but really friendly to work with, and they calm down very quickly.
But I saw mites in July, and I started dusting them all with powdered sugar every time I went in, and I even went into the hive a couple of extra times just to dust them and make sure they got a good coating with the stuff, and my mite counts have actually gone down. Right when they were rocketing up on the colony that died of them.
So I'm convinced it's an effective treatment, never mind the study and the hundreds of hives they did in the study that said the same thing... *laughs* I'm actually seeing it work with my own two eyes and it's amazing to not find deformed young bees in the deeps, to not see any mites on the field workers throughout the supers, and to find the mite drops on my sticky board at the bottom of the hive go *down* significantly over the summer.
So simple and so harmless. Not that easy to do, as it requires going in a lot more often, and that's actually been good for my beekeeping skills, just doing it more makes it easier to do.
I also pulled two medium supers of capped frames today. All full up and ready to go for when my brother-in-law and his wife get here to help with spinning the honey.
Showing posts with label mite. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mite. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Monday, October 13, 2014
Saying Goodbye to the Bee Girls
As posted on ursulav's livejournal:
“Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt – marvelous error!–
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.”
— Antonio Machado
I went out last weekend, in the sunshine, to find a cloud of active, healthy bees around my hive. John and I were happy for a moment, thinking that they were actually orienting bees, and the mite treatment had worked, but it turned out that it was a healthy colony robbing out the last dregs of my poor hive...
They killed off the very last bees in my hive, and were taking all the honey that they could take, which is actually kind of good for them, as it'll help them survive this fall, and the winter. The poor last spots of brood were dead or dying from lack of care, and it was just all pretty much gone.
A failure, truly, and I think I have a little more of an idea as to what went on. The mites were taking over badly, and the cold weather after I'd taken off the last super really didn't allow for there to be much nectar around. There was honey in the brood chambers, so they shouldn't have just starved, but the cold probably made it hard for them to get around, and there was no pollen to be had. Maybe if I'd put pollen patties on? I dunno, as some people really advise against it because it seems to signal spring to some brood, but it would have been what they needed when they needed it. Plus, I'd seen pesticide die off on the front step, so some of the girls had gotten into something they really shouldn't have.
It would have been better if I'd been able to treat them with mite treatment when I actually had ordered the stuff, 2-day postage, but they were unable to fulfill the order for nearly three weeks. So I was stuck and then the weather went freezing for another three days before I could go in. Better yet was if I'd gotten the Mite Away and actually applied it in July when I saw mite drop. Next time. Next time...
Honey from my failures...
Anyway... John and I pulled all the boxes that night, except for the lowest brood box that had half a dozen tiny native bees who were living on the honey and wax that night. They left in the morning, and I got everything into the garage. We just dumped all the foundation with pollen and the spotty dead brood, in case there was pesticide in the pollen, and cleaned off all the frames, and the remaining eight drawn comb full height foundation frames I've been rotating through our deep freeze to kill of wax moths, and then store, sealed in bags, in the garage for the next time I actually get bees.
Tim Brod is a local bee breeder, and he supplies queens, not so much workers, but it might be fun to buy from him next time, instead of from California. Someone kept saying that I should find a wild hive and claim it for my own, but I'm not going to bother native bees that are comfortable in their own habitat. A swarm? Maybe. But not an established colony.
In any case, I now have the winter off as a beekeeper, and the surprising thing is that while I have mourned the girls, and burned offerings in their memory. I loved having them a lot, but it's also something of a relief not to have to worry about them anymore... when there's a cold snap, I don't have to wonder how it's affecting them, and when it gets hot, I don't have to worry about how much ventilation they're getting.
Anyway... I was very glad I had them while I had them, and grateful to them for all they did for me and taught me. And I promise that if/when I get another colony, I'll start posting here again. Thanks for reading...
“Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt – marvelous error!–
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.”
— Antonio Machado
I went out last weekend, in the sunshine, to find a cloud of active, healthy bees around my hive. John and I were happy for a moment, thinking that they were actually orienting bees, and the mite treatment had worked, but it turned out that it was a healthy colony robbing out the last dregs of my poor hive...
They killed off the very last bees in my hive, and were taking all the honey that they could take, which is actually kind of good for them, as it'll help them survive this fall, and the winter. The poor last spots of brood were dead or dying from lack of care, and it was just all pretty much gone.
A failure, truly, and I think I have a little more of an idea as to what went on. The mites were taking over badly, and the cold weather after I'd taken off the last super really didn't allow for there to be much nectar around. There was honey in the brood chambers, so they shouldn't have just starved, but the cold probably made it hard for them to get around, and there was no pollen to be had. Maybe if I'd put pollen patties on? I dunno, as some people really advise against it because it seems to signal spring to some brood, but it would have been what they needed when they needed it. Plus, I'd seen pesticide die off on the front step, so some of the girls had gotten into something they really shouldn't have.
It would have been better if I'd been able to treat them with mite treatment when I actually had ordered the stuff, 2-day postage, but they were unable to fulfill the order for nearly three weeks. So I was stuck and then the weather went freezing for another three days before I could go in. Better yet was if I'd gotten the Mite Away and actually applied it in July when I saw mite drop. Next time. Next time...
Honey from my failures...
Anyway... John and I pulled all the boxes that night, except for the lowest brood box that had half a dozen tiny native bees who were living on the honey and wax that night. They left in the morning, and I got everything into the garage. We just dumped all the foundation with pollen and the spotty dead brood, in case there was pesticide in the pollen, and cleaned off all the frames, and the remaining eight drawn comb full height foundation frames I've been rotating through our deep freeze to kill of wax moths, and then store, sealed in bags, in the garage for the next time I actually get bees.
Tim Brod is a local bee breeder, and he supplies queens, not so much workers, but it might be fun to buy from him next time, instead of from California. Someone kept saying that I should find a wild hive and claim it for my own, but I'm not going to bother native bees that are comfortable in their own habitat. A swarm? Maybe. But not an established colony.
In any case, I now have the winter off as a beekeeper, and the surprising thing is that while I have mourned the girls, and burned offerings in their memory. I loved having them a lot, but it's also something of a relief not to have to worry about them anymore... when there's a cold snap, I don't have to wonder how it's affecting them, and when it gets hot, I don't have to worry about how much ventilation they're getting.
Anyway... I was very glad I had them while I had them, and grateful to them for all they did for me and taught me. And I promise that if/when I get another colony, I'll start posting here again. Thanks for reading...
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Drat...
Went in today to put the MiteAway strips on the top bars of the bottom of the two brood boxes. I also took the feeder off and wanted to put the super back on with the emptied frames so that the the bees could take the leftover honey off of them.
And when I opened it up, I found very very few bees in the box. The top box was practically empty. The honey in the feeder was about half gone, and while there were a few bees up there, there weren't that many. It was a shock given how many bees there were earlier this month.
Nearly all the bees in the bottom box were between three frames on the southwest side of the bottom brood box. There weren't that many of them, but they all looked healthy, and while some had mites on them, there weren't any of the crippled wingless ones. There were bees going in and coming out of the hive, at a pretty good rate, which is partially why I was so surprised to find so few bees in the box.
When I removed the sticky board on the bottom, there was a lot of wax flakes, a lot of bee heads, and a couple of hive beetles (sighs). That isn't good, either. I suspect that the really strong wasp and hornet nests nearby took their toll on the girls, as the wasps pretty much bite their heads off.
I'd been seeing some sign of pesticide die off, as nearly every morning there were a handful of the girls on their backs, feebly waving their legs in the air on the entrance board. On cold mornings there were a lot more dead than on relatively warm mornings. I wonder if they'd brought back some poisoned pollen? I don't know.
The boxes were also pretty heavy, still, so there was honey in the frames the bees had. A number of the local keepers have experienced starving because August and September were far colder and rainier than the local flora is used to having, so they haven't been producing as much nectar. So they've been feeding at a pretty good clip. So they weren't dying off simply because I wasn't good about feeding them... there's just something else going on, and I'm kind of sad to see it.
I left the open mesh bottom board on because of the mites, to get rid of them, but maybe the ventilation is too much and it was too cold for them? Anyway, there seem to be a myriad of possible reasons, and no real way of sorting them all out. So I just put the strips on for the ladies that were left, and if I get their mite problem taken care of, and reduce them to a single, well-honeyed brood box, it might give them a little more of a chance. But this winter really looks like it's going to be a harsh one, so I don't give them much of a chance with such small numbers before even getting into winter.
It's kind of a shock, but it's also kind of to be expected, as the local keepers have been writing, lately on our email list, about what a horrible end to the season it's been. The losses are huge already, and the mite loads have been crazy. Plus, the feeding/lack of flow problem, and a lot of keepers are already losing a lot of colonies. One lady even found an abandoned apiary that she was asking for help to clean out... so it's kind of sad all around.
And when I opened it up, I found very very few bees in the box. The top box was practically empty. The honey in the feeder was about half gone, and while there were a few bees up there, there weren't that many. It was a shock given how many bees there were earlier this month.
Nearly all the bees in the bottom box were between three frames on the southwest side of the bottom brood box. There weren't that many of them, but they all looked healthy, and while some had mites on them, there weren't any of the crippled wingless ones. There were bees going in and coming out of the hive, at a pretty good rate, which is partially why I was so surprised to find so few bees in the box.
When I removed the sticky board on the bottom, there was a lot of wax flakes, a lot of bee heads, and a couple of hive beetles (sighs). That isn't good, either. I suspect that the really strong wasp and hornet nests nearby took their toll on the girls, as the wasps pretty much bite their heads off.
I'd been seeing some sign of pesticide die off, as nearly every morning there were a handful of the girls on their backs, feebly waving their legs in the air on the entrance board. On cold mornings there were a lot more dead than on relatively warm mornings. I wonder if they'd brought back some poisoned pollen? I don't know.
The boxes were also pretty heavy, still, so there was honey in the frames the bees had. A number of the local keepers have experienced starving because August and September were far colder and rainier than the local flora is used to having, so they haven't been producing as much nectar. So they've been feeding at a pretty good clip. So they weren't dying off simply because I wasn't good about feeding them... there's just something else going on, and I'm kind of sad to see it.
I left the open mesh bottom board on because of the mites, to get rid of them, but maybe the ventilation is too much and it was too cold for them? Anyway, there seem to be a myriad of possible reasons, and no real way of sorting them all out. So I just put the strips on for the ladies that were left, and if I get their mite problem taken care of, and reduce them to a single, well-honeyed brood box, it might give them a little more of a chance. But this winter really looks like it's going to be a harsh one, so I don't give them much of a chance with such small numbers before even getting into winter.
It's kind of a shock, but it's also kind of to be expected, as the local keepers have been writing, lately on our email list, about what a horrible end to the season it's been. The losses are huge already, and the mite loads have been crazy. Plus, the feeding/lack of flow problem, and a lot of keepers are already losing a lot of colonies. One lady even found an abandoned apiary that she was asking for help to clean out... so it's kind of sad all around.
Monday, September 22, 2014
Record Keeping
Mostly to say that today I treated the hive again with powdered sugar, as I'm still waiting on the beekeeping supply place to ship my mite control strips. *sighs*
I also put all the uncapped honey into the sugar syrup feeder I usually put on near this time of the year, and fed it back to the colony. I don't make mead, I don't really use honey quickly enough to use all the uncapped stuff I got out of the super, but I had to take the super off in order for the colony to fill its brood box. This way the girls will still get the benefit of their labor. It was actually pretty close to the density of honey, so I don't feel like it's feeding them something watered down that will bring on dysentery. And it was nearly five pounds of the stuff, so it'll just help them that much more for the winter.
Also pulling and replacing the sticky board which has a pretty large number of mites, so any treatment won't hurt.
Oh! And I got another half a gallon from the very last harvest. I wasn't expecting much, so it was nice to just see what I could get.
I also put all the uncapped honey into the sugar syrup feeder I usually put on near this time of the year, and fed it back to the colony. I don't make mead, I don't really use honey quickly enough to use all the uncapped stuff I got out of the super, but I had to take the super off in order for the colony to fill its brood box. This way the girls will still get the benefit of their labor. It was actually pretty close to the density of honey, so I don't feel like it's feeding them something watered down that will bring on dysentery. And it was nearly five pounds of the stuff, so it'll just help them that much more for the winter.
Also pulling and replacing the sticky board which has a pretty large number of mites, so any treatment won't hurt.
Oh! And I got another half a gallon from the very last harvest. I wasn't expecting much, so it was nice to just see what I could get.
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