Bee Keeping

Could repeated dusting over a long enough period of time take care of the whole problem? As teh brood hatch they would then also get dusted. Eventually they'd be making mite-free brood right?

Skiptron wrote:

Could repeated dusting over a long enough period of time take care of the whole problem? As teh brood hatch they would then also get dusted. Eventually they'd be making mite-free brood right?

It can keep them manageable. Dusting also only works in strong hives because they already are grooming well. Hives that are weaker in general are more susceptible. Like Polq mentioned it does nothing to bees in the larval stage. That happens to be the area that mites do the most damage too. So you would need repeated dusting for a period of 4 weeks to do a lot to curb it. I have read its best used as an additional management option after harsher treatment.

With all this in mind, don't forget the old adage "ask 5 keepers, get 6 answers"

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/v96UvNP.jpg)

Saw this and thought of you guys.

Update: About three weeks ago, I saw a couple of varroa mites on the hive's bottom screen. I haven't been willing to do an alcohol wash count on them (collect about half a cup of bees, drown them in alcohol, swirl them around, count the varroa mites that come off) because I'm lazy and the process scares me and I don't want to kill my bees and I'm worried about accidentally killing the queen, but I figured that the time had come to actually take some measures. I've been fretting about it a lot, but I came to the conclusion that I needed an actual mite treatment plan. So, I've decided to do oxalic acid shop towel treatments: one in mid June, one in mid August, and maybe something else in mid winter.

So, the process involved getting some wood bleach (oxalic acid), glycerin, and Scott's brand shop towels. I carefully measured out some milliliters of glycerin and some grams of oxalic acid and mixed them in a glass measuring cup, heating it in a microwave to promote dissolving. This resulted in a thick, acidic slurry which I then poured over a couple of shop towels in a glass baking pan. The two towels pretty much soaked up the whole solution. The next step in the recipe was to then squeeze out about half the solution, which I think I pretty much managed to do by wadding them up and wringing them out and hoping I wasn't tearing them apart. This was the shakiest part of the process and it turns out that there's a better recipe that uses smaller amounts of glycerin and acid and a bit of water as a carrier medium. This latter recipe doesn't need to be wrung out and yields a more accurate dose of chemicals.

I then draped the acid slurry soaked towels over the tops of the brood frames, half convinced that the bees were all just going to spontaneously die.

They didn't. They're doing fine.

As far as I can tell, the treatment didn't seem to bother them at all. I checked on them after about a week and a half and activity seemed to be normal. The bees hadn't reduced the towels very much - I expected them to have shredded more of towels. But, the process is supposed to last for at least the length of a breeding cycle.

Is the treatment doing any good? I did not see an increased mite fall on the screened bottom board. I haven't really seen any more mites at all. I'm not sure if that is a feature of this type of treatment though.

I'll check on the hives again this weekend, after another week and a half.

In case you are in need of truly random bee facts, botnik now has a predictive bee keyboard.

https://twitter.com/botnikstudios/st...

Bee update. Sorry its been a while. Not much has been happening. Bees are incredibly self sufficient.

My captured swarm absconded a while ago. Probably within two weeks of me capturing them. Currently my two remaining hives are doing really well. Especially considering all of the continuous rain we have had. But we are entering the summer dearth. In another week or two I am going to setup a sugar feeder away from the hive to simulate a nectar flow. So the hives start building up for the fall and hopefully will go into winter nice and strong.

Both of my hives are doing pretty well, I think. I'm pretty sure I lost the queen in one of the hives, not long after I did the oxalic acid treatment. I didn't realize anything was wrong for about a month, when I finally noticed that the overall population of what had been the stronger hive seemed to be in decline. I checked the brood frames and noticed that there was no capped brood, but I did see a few grubs. I decided to let the issue coast for another week and there was a solid frame of capped brood on the subsequent check.

So the lesson there is that the length of time it takes to notice a missing queen is about the length of time it takes for the hive to replace her.

Neither of the two hives seems to be producing as much honey as last year's hive. I was feeding both hives heavily through July with mason jar drippers full of sugar water. And even though both hives did put on a fair bit of weight over this time, I was concerned that I was feeding all the other hives in the region as well.

Isn't sugar water kind of inexpensive, though? Could be a community service benefits all hives...

Robear wrote:

Isn't sugar water kind of inexpensive, though? Could be a community service benefits all hives...

Pluses and minuses. Sugar water honey is not great. So, I might not be doing a favor to other keepers in the area who are raising honey for market. Also, I'd rather have wildflower honey - so I stopped feeding once one of the hives mostly filled up the available space and added another honey super for them to start filling up with natural wildflower honey.

On the other hand, sugar water is great for building out wax. So, waiting for the bees to fill out frames with wax from wild nectar is a bit of a waste of time and nectar. Managing all this properly means paying attention to what's going on in the hive at the frame level. That's more work than I want to do, and more philosophically, more than I want to disrupt the hive and it's routines.

Most honey harvesting, even on fairly small scales, mixes together frames of honey built at different times and taken from different hives. As a hobbyist, I'd rather harvest honey by individual frame and try to have the honey be a reflection of what local wildflower sources were blooming at a specific times.

With two active hives, I was burning through about a liter of sugar a day. It's not a huge expense at that scale, but feeding hives is a major cost for commercial bee keepers.

I see. So I should not set up sugar water feeders as a "community service". How disappointing.

Robear wrote:

I see. So I should not set up sugar water feeders as a "community service". How disappointing.

As another note on this. Sugar water is ok as supplemental feeding. In order to do things like build up wax and the such. Not the best as a main food source since its just empty calories. I plan on setting up an outside the hive feeding station with the idea that if I can simulate an early nectar flow the hives will be able to build up the the fall foraging bees quicker, which should help them over winter by having more bees to go into winter with more food available.

Edit.
Its not clear but my point is you dont want wild bees to have sugar as their main food source. SO i wouldnt set up random sugar feeders.

Robear wrote:

I see. So I should not set up sugar water feeders as a "community service". How disappointing.

One of the best things you can do is plant bee-friendly plants. If you go to a plant nursery, take a moment to observe bee activity. There will be a few plants that are attracting extraordinary numbers of bees. Often these will be brushy, bushy looking things with small flowers. If you have a lawn, you could also consider reseeding it with clover.

We do that already, with local plants. And I think next year we'll do some milkweed, too. We also shelter miner bees and explain them to the neighbors, when they show up. (I suspect one of the neighbors killed them last year, though, they did not show up this year...).

Thank you all for more updates.

Do bee forums or groups host honey swaps so you can try the honey from all over the place?

Igneus - When you say the captured ones left do you know where they settled? Is it normal for the whole colony to just pack up and head out?

Skiptron wrote:

Do bee forums or groups host honey swaps so you can try the honey from all over the place?

My local association does. They also swap with other associations for samples, and at our banquet they do a tasting. I have yet to go to it though.

Skiptron wrote:

Igneus - When you say the captured ones left do you know where they settled? Is it normal for the whole colony to just pack up and head out?

No i don't know where they settled. Yes it is. When a colony swarms, its half the colony (roughly). If they don't like their new home then they may abscond off. They are a wild creature, so they do what they feel right.

polq37 wrote:

One of the best things you can do is plant bee-friendly plants. If you go to a plant nursery, take a moment to observe bee activity. There will be a few plants that are attracting extraordinary numbers of bees. Often these will be brushy, bushy looking things with small flowers. If you have a lawn, you could also consider reseeding it with clover.

Solid advice. I happen to be in the midst of building a new house. Let me start by saying the process is pretty miserable. All the minor crap that I have to decide on when I have basically no idea what I am doing. That being said, it is surprising how much consideration I am having with setting it up for bee friendliness. I have looked at lawn alternatives, lilac hedges (multi variety to have 3 separate grow times), and landscape options to promote bee health. One of the very basic things people can do is not kill off your dandelions and clover. Those are great for bees. Also one of the heartiest most widely accessible plants is alfalfa which is both a great nectar source and pollen source. The down side to my new place is the mono-crop fields of corn which is anemophilous (fancy way of saying pollinated by wind) and not used often by bees.

I asked a bee keeper if it was OK to give tired bees honey, instead of sugar water on a spoon. He said I shouldn't ever do that because the honey might have bacteria in it that the bees don't have. I took it to mean that it was like honey from another hive being like spaniards landing in south america.

Seeing people talking about making sugar water with honey has confused me. Was he right or not?

It's not sugar water made with honey, it's just sugar water, 1lb of sugar to 1lb of water. Don't feed tired bees with a spoon. That's just viral nonsense. I tell folk who ask how to help to develop a green thumb. Other than that. Just don't kill them.

Thanks Igneus. That article is a bit depressing. My mother told me the other day that she saw some bees drinking water she had left out. Perhaps that will be more helpful.

1Dgaf wrote:

Thanks Igneus. That article is a bit depressing. My mother told me the other day that she saw some bees drinking water she had left out. Perhaps that will be more helpful.

Bees always are on the lookout for water. They need it as much as any other critter.

So not much to talk about. Last week was the only nice week here in a while. But I was on vacation in another state. Now this week is all rain. So I will have to wait to get into my hives some more.

I posted this in the Interesting Kickstarter thread, but it is bee related. Here is something combining my favorite two hobbies: bees and games.

Bee Lives

That kickstarter looks intriguing, I hope it gets funded.

I read this article while traveling home last night: The Super Bowl of Beekeeping.

I bought a copy of Waggle Dance because it was about bees.

1Dgaf wrote:

I bought a copy of Waggle Dance because it was about bees.

Well how is it?

Haven’t been able to play it yet. Will post here when I do.

So i was stung this weekend, three times. Not even while i was at my hives! I was grilling and apparently some ground dwelling bees found under the grill to be a great spot. I am not a fan of killing bees, as should be obvious. But these buggers are going to drown. I wish it was something where I can just don my gear and remove them. But they dont hive the same way, and where/how would i put them in a safe location. I can't just throw some dirt over them.

WHy don't bee hives have handles that stick out, insde of ones that are cut into the wood? Even hinged ones for a better grip.

1Dgaf wrote:

WHy don't bee hives have handles that stick out, insde of ones that are cut into the wood? Even hinged ones for a better grip.

Mostly for ease I think. If you have some that stick out then they have to be attached someway (which could also increase cost). Which could break or interfere inside the hive. The cut ins for handles they use now are pretty durable because you are essentially grabbing the box itself. Not as much of a risk of rot breakage or screw loosening. The cut ins provide plenty of grip too.

I did wonder about structrual integrity or a handle breaking, but I've heard that the boxes can weigh up to 25kg if there's a lot of honey, but with a wooden handle you're pretty much just using your fingers to hold it rather then the whole fist.

Bee Keeping season is coming to a close. My hives are doing as well as can be expected. We will see if they survive the winter. I will have to use supplemental feeding as the super wet year didn't allow for great blossoming plants. A lot of my local area has been under water. I am moving soon so hopefully my new more open location will provide a better opportunity for the bees. We shall see.