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