The knotweed is exploding! If you still have entrance reducers on to prevent robbing after the blackberry flow was done, definitely take them off until this flow is over. Bees don’t rob when a flow is on. It’s much easier to get the nectar from the flower than fighting their way into another colonies hive.
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I was talking to a beekeeper who did an alcohol wash a month ago with few mites in the hive. Recently he did a full oxalic acid vaporization as a test and had lots and lots of mites drop, up to 500 in a couple of hives. We talked about what to do and decided to do OA vaporizations every three days to kill as many of the phoretic mites as possible until the next spell of 90 degree weather passes this week. He’s then going to use formic pro after that.
His is a serious case. The club is using formic pro in a really interesting and unique way they learned from some visitors from British Columbia. They put a single formic pro pad on for eight days after which they put a fresh formic pro pad on and again eight days later. So a single formic pro pad is on for a total of 24 days which is the exact length of “gestation” of drones. There’s a pad on as each bee, with or without mites, emerges. It makes wonderful sense especially if you don’t have a serious issue.
Formic pro is so strong that the queen often stops laying for the time it is on plus some. It sometimes even kills the queen. With a lighter dose perhaps neither of those things will happen.
One thing is for sure. It's super important to know if you have a varroa problem and to deal with it ASAP.
I went into a hive with one of our beekeepers who had a viable colony three weeks ago but the colony is queenless now. Be sure to continue to look at least for larva if not eggs.
I’m so curious if everyone’s hives have lots of capped brood. I thought she was supposed to be slowing down.
Since we didn’t have a meeting in August because of the fair, I’ve missed hearing people’s stories. I have two little stories.
First, I got stung watching tv one evening recently! Huh? I thought I was swishing away a fly from ear. Evidently, a bee got under the collar of my cotton shirt and was stuck there while I napped and ate supper. One for the books.
More interesting… I had a swarm a few days ago. We had friends over in the evening and one of them noticed it up in the tree. We got it down and boxed it up. All the bees went in. I took it five miles south to Mike Taksdal the next morning. We put it in a box, gave it a couple of frames of honey, drawn comb and a pollen patty. Paradise, right? Mike left to go back to work and I went home. Very shortly thereafter all the bees left the hive never to be seen again! Why on earth would they do that, I wondered. It drove me crazy trying to figure it out.
So the only explanation that makes any sense to me (so far)… They likely swarmed mid-day and were in the tree all day. The scouts had plenty of time to find their new home which they intended to go to the next day the way they usually do. They didn’t realize that I had taken them five miles away, of course. So they came out thinking they could just stick to their game plan. Lesson learned: We usually catch a swarm not so long after they swarm. Once they are in our catch box, scouts can’t come and do their swarm dance. It’s possible the longer they are in the tree, the harder it is to relocate them. Maybe. Any other ideas?
I was doing an oxalic acid vaporization test with a beekeeper yesterday. We went in from the back and had the front closed with a wet cloth. See the lovely picture attached of the foragers waiting to get in. The pic doesn’t do it justice. I’ve no idea what the orange pollen is. They have orange California poppies the bees were on but not that many.
Please share what’s going on in your hives. To those of you who got nucs through the club this year, I’m about to send out another questionnaire as to the status of things.