Mite Control

Tonight was the night that the green nuc was treated for mites with OAV.  If you'll remember, the queen was isolated in a push-in cage 25 days ago.  Six days ago, she was released back into the colony.  Any brood that was in the hive prior to her being caged would have emerged from its capped cell by now and any eggs and/or larvae that she'd laid since being released would not yet be old enough to be capped.  Therefore, every brood cell in the hive should be uncapped.  And that's when OAV works best.

Oxalic Acid Vaporizer.  Note, you should not put a car battery on concrete.  I got that lecture from my husband earlier.

For those of you who have never done oxalic acid vaporization, it's really not as daunting as it first seems.  You have a vaporization wand and a battery.  You should always follow the directions that came with your unit.  My particular model says to put 1/2 teaspoons of oxalic acid (wood bleach) into the reservoir, insert the wand all the way into the hive, and drape a damp towel over the entrance to seal the entrance.  Then hook the unit up to a car battery for three minutes, and only three minutes.  Then unhook the unit and let it cool for two minutes.  Finally, pull the wand out, but leave the towel in place for another 10 minutes.  So, in 15 minutes you're done.  Easy peasy.

While I was waiting on the 10 minutes to be up, I decided to take a peak at the light green hive.  This one has been giving me fits for awhile.  I now believe them to be the source of the excessive amount of crawling bees that I've been seeing on the ground.  Some of the crawlers have either K-wing or deformed wing virus, which I've also seen inside the light green hive.  Dissecting the midgut shows tan, healthy-looking intestines.  That hopefully rules out nosema.  I decided to do a quick alcohol wash to get a mite count.

An alcohol wash is simply taking about 1/2 cup of bees and putting them in a jar with isopropyl alcohol.  A half-cup is somewhere around 300 bees.  I try to take these from the broodnest, that is a middle frame that has capped or uncapped brood on it.  Make sure the queen is not on this frame.  Shake the frame into a large tub or container.  I use the top of an old Tupperware cake carrier.  One of those under-the-bed Rubbermaid boxes would probably also be ideal.  Now that you've got a thousand upset bees in your big container, simply (ha!) use a household measuring cup to scoop up a half-cup and put them in a jar.  I use a pint-sized, wide-mouth glass mason jar.  I used the band that fits the jar, but instead of the lid, I cut out a circle of #8 hardware cloth cut to fit inside the band.  Slap that lid on the bees and then pour the alcohol over them.  Now it's time to shake, shake, shake.  Then pour the alcohol back through the hardware cloth into a light colored bowl.  Repeat until no more mites come off.  You can reuse the alcohol by pouring it back into the jar.  I don't love having to sacrifice bees, but if it helps the colony survive then I can live with it.

Alcohol wash with bees that made the ultimate sacrifice

The results of my alcohol wash were, as expected, not great.  I found 11 mites.  That's just under 4% infestation rate.  Randy Oliver (who's website, Scientific Beekeeping, rocks) suggests a target threshold of 1%.  In addition, Keith Delaplane recommends a jar count of no more than 7-19 mites in the fall for my region.  So, something's gotta be done.

Ewww.  Okay, so some of these spots aren't mites, but most of them are.  

I considered treating with a series of OAV treatments, but decided to give the queen isolation method another try.  I caged her tonight.  I'll cut out the queen cells this weekend and uncage her on Father's Day.  One thing I did with this hive that I didn't do with the last hive was to cull drone comb.  It wasn't exactly planned this way, as I didn't have any drone frames in this hive.  They just happened to have built a large portion of their drone comb on a single frame.  I pulled it out and put in the freezer.  I'll give it back to them this weekend when I cut out the queen cells.

Unofficial Start of Summer

Happy Memorial Day everyone.  While it's the unofficial start of summer for the rest of the country, for beekeepers in my neck of the woods it often signals the end of our spring flow.  I'm getting reports from areas both north and south of here that they aren't seeing much movement on their hive scales.  Locally, I'm still seeing a good bit of clover blooming and that makes up a large portion of our flow.  The clover isn't nearly as abundant as last year.  It's been a drier year than last; I hope this doesn't translate into another drought.  The spiderwort in the front yard is winding down, but the clover is still hanging on.  We have had a few rainy days lately, so maybe that will prompt a little resurgence in the clover and a last minute bump in production.  Something is blooming because I'm seeing a little bit of pollen coming in.  I'm kind of glad that I decided to order a new feeder instead of a new honey super to fill out my Mann Lake order.  Speaking of, I think that I put together the last of this years frames.  Have I mentioned that I hate wiring frames?

Waiting on the crosswires. 

I checked on the queen in the green nuc today.  I thought it would be a quick check, so I geared up all the way and didn't light up the smoker.  They weren't happy to see me, but weren't able to get through the suit of armor (jeans + Carhartt pants + jacket/veil).  This was the one that had dropped on the ground.  I was afraid that because she had been isolated for awhile and then out of the hive overnight that they would reject her.  I found her walking around, so she seems to have been accepted.  I noticed that almost all the capped brood had emerged, with the exception of a few very small patches of drone comb.  I think I will treat with oxalic acid on Wednesday evening.  Any eggs laid yesterday or today won't be capped yet and it will give the last bits of capped brood a little more time to emerge.  The hive itself has a LOT of nectar and capped honey and almost a full frame of pollen of all colors.  I tried to take a picture, but accidentally left my camera in the house.  I've gotta do better about that.

I believe that I have a mite problem in the light green hive.  I've seen some DWV in the hive and I'm still seeing a lot of crawling bees.  I think that the colonies that didn't get a broodbreak (orange, light green, Auburn nuc, and outyard new stand) will get treated with a series of OAV treatments.  Unfortunately, it is rare for our bees to go completely broodless here, so the series method is often used in summer to get healthy bees going into fall and winter.  I'm hoping to expand the isolated queen method to full sized hives eventually.  I just need to work out the correct timing so that the dip in population corresponds to the summer dearth.

Rescued!

So, I did drop the queen on Wednesday when I tried to release her.  I didn't find her Wednesday night, but as I was walking by the next day I noticed that there were a lot of bees hanging out in an area that bees really shouldn't be hanging out.  Sure enough, the queen was hanging from a plant near the hive.  I scooped her up and put her back in the hive.  I hope that they won't reject her.  If they do then I'm in no worse position than I was Wednesday and can give them a ripe queen cell.  It won't tell me anything about my isolation+OAV experiment, but they'll be queenright.

In other queen news, the white hive in the back yard FINALLY has a queen!  So far, I'm only seeing eggs, so she hasn't been laying long, but I saw her with her back end stuck into an empty cell.  These eggs will be ready for foraging in early to middle July, so that should give them a decent foraging force for goldenrod in the fall.  I would expect their mite numbers to be pretty low, but that's yet to be seen.

That....Did not go as planned

The plan for today was to go in and uncage the queen in the green nuc.  For the last 18 days, she's been confined to a push in cage.  The idea was that confining her to a small section of comb would induce a period of broodlessness and make an OAV treatment more effective.  As you can see from the pictures, I didn't wait until the colony was completely broodless to release her.  The capped brood not under the cage is, at least, 18 days old.  Therefore, I expect that in 6 days it will all be emerged and that's when I'll treat.  Sounds easy, right?

Queen Jail

First of all, when I opened the hive up, the girls were in a really, really bad mood.  The weather was changing and rain was coming.  Because I thought this was going to be a quick operation, I only put on my jacket and veil.  I also only put about 30 minutes worth of smoker fuel in.  I would come to regret both of these actions.

So, as soon as I opened the hive, they let me know that they weren't happy to see me.  Of course, you'd be unhappy too if someone pulled the roof off your house and started moving the furniture around.  Almost immediately I took a sting through my jeans.  Now I'm regretting not putting on my Carharts.

I pull the frame with the queen on it and she's still in there.  There's a queen cell hanging out of the side of the cage.  It looks like she was able to get an egg close enough to the workers for them to build a new cell.  I knock that off and try to take the cage off the frame.  Uh-oh.  It's stuck.  No amount of wiggling and twisting will get it to come free.  I end up tearing a whole chunk of comb out the size of the cage.  Now I've got the cage, with the queen still in it.  I carefully peel a corner back to let her out.  And about that time I realize that a bee has made it into my jeans.  Crap.  There's sting number two.  I set the cage down over the hive box and scrape the stinger out of my leg.  Now I'm regretting not putting on my boots.

A Closer Look

I go back to the cage and she's out.  I quickly look over the frames that the cage was sitting on, but I don't see her.  The girls are getting more agitated so I close it up and call it a day for them.  They were a little honeybound, so I took one frame of nectar and gave them a frame of drawn comb.  That will at least give the queen somewhere to lay for the next week or so, assuming she's in there.  I looked around and didn't see any clumps of bees on the ground that would indicate that there's a queen there.  I'll check them again in a few days to see if there's any eggs.  If there is then I'll go ahead and do the OAV as planned.  If not, the Auburn nuc had queen cups on three different frames so I might be able to take one of those.

So, what's the verdict on this method of mite control?  I still believe it has possibilities.  The cage did keep the queen contained for the requisite number of days.  Did having her in there keep some sort of order in the hive?  Yes and no.  They did create queen cells so caging her in that small of a cage didn't produce enough queen pheromones to suppress the emergency response.  But, up until today they had been fairly docile and didn't really "act" queenless.  I think once I figure out how to remove the cage without tearing the comb out then it can work.

You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do

Today's work was really about correcting issues discovered yesterday.  I started in the outyard.  I compressed the hive in the old stand (I really gotta come up with a better name) down to one story.  I don't love doing it that way because I had to handle the frame with the queen cells and move them from the top story to the bottom story and given my luck with queens this year I'm not confident about that.  Also, all of the frames in the bottom story are now drawn out which would normally signal the need for a second box.  They can't swarm without a queen, but I left two queen cells in it, an heir and a spare you might say.  There is still some capped brood there, so there will be some empty cells in the coming weeks.  I ended up taking off 7 frames of untouched foundation and 2 frames that had started to be drawn out with a little nectar and 1 frame that was drawn out, but empty.  The population of the hive is smaller than I'd like, so I think that the smaller area to defend is a good thing.  I haven't seen much in the way of SHB this season, but I did see about 6 in that hive today.  I think that next week (hopefully) when the new equipment comes in that I'll give them their second story back, but will give them a frame of brood to boost their numbers.

The point of pulling those frames was to give the Auburn nuc in the backyard room to expand.  They were boiling over with bees yesterday and were just days from swarming.  I found three queen cells.  One had an egg and another is on it's way to being sealed.  I separated the queen cells from what I hoped was a frame with a queen on it.  I didn't see the queen, but guessed based on their behavior.  I went back and checked today and finally found the queen.  Marked queens make life easier, but yellow isn't the easiest mark to find.  Anyway, I had guessed right yesterday and the queen was in the old half and the queen cells were in the new half.  As I'm sitting here typing this out, I'm wondering if I should have switched the sides in order to give the queenless half the foragers.  Oh well.  It happens.  Dogs' gonna bark, birds' gonna fly, I'm going to make stupid beekeeping mistakes.  It might be for the best anyway since that will probably be the hive that I rob a frame of brood from for the outyard Hive 2.  Anyway, I gave each half a second story and four frames of foundation.  The queenless half did get the frames that were drawn out with nectar since it will be a few days before the foragers start flying.  I'm saving the empty drawn comb for Nuc 1 when I release the queen on Wednesday.

Whew!

Have you ever had one of those days where you ask yourself "why the heck do I do this again?"

In the outyard, the hive in the old stand had 6 sealed queen cells, so queenlessness is confirmed.  I'm still at a loss as to what happened and why it doesn't even look like they attempted to raise a new queen.  Maybe she was poorly mated and by the time they realized it there were no suitable eggs.  I would expect to see a lot of drone comb in that case, and I'm not really seeing that.  Requeening has been my Achilles heel this season.

The hive in the new stand has lots and lots of bees.  They're really working on the super that I gave them last week.  What I gave them last week was the super frames from last year that didn't get fully capped.  I kept them in the freezer over the winter and gave them back to the bees last week.  I was afraid that the moisture from the thawing super might be a problem, but they look okay.  I'm not sure how much they've actually done vs. how much was already there, but I went ahead and gave them and empty super because the one they have is pretty full already and I'm seeing a bit of white wax on the bottom of the inner cover.

Now, on to the backyard.  I didn't open up the white hive.  If the last requeening worked then I wouldn't expect her to have started laying just yet.  I'll give her a few more days before I go in and start disturbing things.  The orange hive is going nuts.  They've drawn out 6-7 frames in the super, including some of the frames with starter strips.  They may need another super sooner rather than later.  The light green hive is drawing comb out faster now.  I didn't think they would need a super this year, but I might have been wrong.  I did notice at least one case of DWV in the hive, so that doesn't make me happy.  I'll start OAV treatment next week when I do the green nuc.

Speaking of the green nuc, the queen is still caged and still alive.  I'll release her on Wednesday and treat with OAV on the following Tuesday.  There is one patch of capped brood in her jail cell and some that will be emerging shortly.  The hive is starting to get honeybound.  They need at least one frame of foundation to play with.

Now we come to the Auburn hive.  I didn't check on them last week.  I should have.  It is bursting at the seams with bees.   I found 3 swarm cells in various stages.  One with an egg and one that's only a day or so from being capped.  They were definitely getting ready to swarm.  I moved all of the swarm cells into one half of the box and left the rest of the frames in the original half.  I'm hoping that the queen is in the half that doesn't have the queen cells.  I didn't see her, but made a guess based on the bees' attitude.  I'm going to go in and dig through a little deeper tomorrow.  I was trying to beat out the rain today.  I took the top story off, but really need to add it back on ASAP.

So, what makes this day so difficult?  I was not expecting to have to split the Auburn nuc and I'm completely out of deep frames.  In fact, the orange hive only has 9 frames in the top brood box.  I'm also down to 2 spare supers.  I need 9 deep frames immediately and would like to have another 8 on hand to fill the green nuc's other half when that time comes.  No problem I thought.  There is a bee supply shop about an hour from my house that I can always swing by in case of emergency.  So, I packed up the kiddo, picked up my mom to ride with us (because the kiddo wanted Maw-Maw), and off we went.  We made it two blocks before the sensor panel lit up on the Jeep.  The back passenger side tire is low.  It's been low for a few days.  My husband plugged a hole from a nail a few days ago and added air, but I thought he just hadn't added enough to bring it up to spec.  The front passenger side is now also low.  Really, really low.  So, around the block and back home we go.  Bust out the bucket of soapy water and sure enough there is a nail in the front tire.  And one in the back tire.  By this time, its already 4:00 so there's no way we're going to make it to the shop before they close, the tire shops are already closed, and the last resort of Wal-Mart is going to have to order my tires so we're definitely not going anywhere.  And then the rain started.  Ugh.

Inspection Time

I slacked on making these notes, so I'm going to remember as much as I can.

In the backyard, the green nuc's queen is still caged, but they are chewing around the outside of the cage.  I pushed the cage in a little more, but I'm afraid that they will end up chewing a big enough hole to release the queen which will defeat the purpose of confining her.  If she can stay in for another 11 days then we'll be in good shape.  There were two capped queen cells on the frame that the cage was located on, but I didn't see any others.  I wasn't necessarily surprised to see queen cells, but I wasn't expecting to see them on the frame that the queen was located on.  I would have thought that her pheromones would have maintained order in the hive, especially that close to where she is located.

I didn't open the Auburn nuc or the light green hive.  I was trying to beat out a rainstorm and think that they're probably okay.

In the white hive, I found what appears to be a virgin queen.  I expect that she should be laying by 5/20 or 5/21.  They aren't really doing much with the super but still have some room in the brood chamber (i.e. are no longer as honey bound as they had been, though they have more nectar in the brood chamber than I'm happy with.

The orange hive is starting to draw out their super.  Some cells are even being filled.  They probably won't need another this season, but I'll keep an eye on them.


In the outyard, the hive in the old stand is troubling.  I saw capped brood, but no eggs or larvae, no queen of any variety, and no queen cells (though there was what looks like a torn down queen cell but I'm unsure of it's age).  Population also seems lower than it should.  I gave them a test frame from Hive 2, and will check on it in a week.  They had a laying queen a week ago.  I'm always afraid that I crushed her, but even if I did that then they should have raised an emergency queen from an egg.  Another possibility is that they immediately superseded her.  But in that case, there should be a sealed queen cell somewhere.  The population is still lower than I'd like.  Once I see what they are doing with the test frame, I'll make a decision about giving them a donor.

The hive in the new stand is booming.  The top brood box had 6-7 frames drawn out.  I went ahead and gave them the unfinished super from last year.  It hadn't thawed as much as I would have liked, but it is what it is.  They were heavily bearding on the front of the hive and I thought they might need more room.  We'll see how it turns out.  I'm considering giving them an empty super in a week and letting them go for the season.

I Had a Helper Today!

My son put on his bee suit and gloves and came out to look at the bees with me.  He didn't stay long, but he got to see his first queen.

He's not quite sure he trusts the veil.

Seeing Her Majesty

In the backyard, I found signs that the white hive successfully created a queen.  To of the three queen cells are torn open from the side, indicating that a rival queen killed them off.  I'm hoping that will mean no afterswarms.  The bees have also cleared out an area for the new queen to lay.  If you recall, this hive was terribly honeybound after the last requeening attempt, so I think this might be a good sign.  I did give them a donor frame from the green nuc to help boost their numbers until the new queen starts laying.  

The light green hive is doing what it is that they do.  Three frames of foundation have been drawn out up top.  I'd like to see a little more activity out of them, but we'll give them another week or so before I make a decision about a donor frame.  

The orange hive is going nuts.  I didn't go all the way to the bottom box, but I saw at least 5 frames of brood in the top box and all but two of the frames in the top box has been drawn out.  I ran out of frames and the top box only has 9 frames in it.  I'll remedy that ASAP, but I hope it doesn't cause too many problems until then.  I gave them a super to start filling out.  We may get some honey yet this year.  

The Auburn nuc is starting to draw out foundation.  They've pulled in a LOT of pollen.  They've still got 3 frames of foundation to work with, so I think they'll be okay for a couple of weeks.  

The green nuc has 5 frames (out of 8) of brood in all stages.  I took one of those frames as a donor frame for hive two and gave them new foundation to work on.  After I was finished I started noticing a lot of bees crawling around, unable to fly.  I had seen this a couple of weeks ago, but it had cleared up after the white hive was treated with OAV.  But, this time some of them have DWV and K-wing.  So, I've got a mite problem to deal with.  I suspect that it's coming from the green nuc because they came from the white hive and haven't had a brood break.  I did an alcohol wash, but something went very wrong and I only found two mites.

The only good thing about this is that I finally get to test out a theory that I've been working on.  I picked up these plastic push-in cages a few months back.  They are like 2.5" x 3" and the spaces between the bars are big enough for workers to get in, but not for the queen to get out.  It's a queen jail.  So, I'll use that to isolate the queen for 18 days and the release her and treat with OAV six days after that.  (18 days + 6 days = the 24 days that it will take for most brood to hatch out and new brood not be capped yet).  I lucked out and found the queen on a frame full of honey and jailed her there.  If this works then I'll figure out the best time to apply this idea to other hives.  My initial thoughts are right after I pull honey, which usually happens around the 4th of July.  

In the outyard, it's a lot of business as usual.  The hive in the new stand is bearding outside a good bit.  I thought that might mean that they would need a super, but upon opening it up, I found that only about 6 frames were drawn out in the top box so I think the super needs to wait for another week or two.  I didn't go into the bottom box, but found open brood in the top box so the queen is there.  The hive in the old stand has successfully raised a queen.  I saw her and some capped and uncapped brood.  The top box only had 2-3 frames of foundation drawn out.  It might be worth giving them a donor frame when I have one available.  

I'm starting to see lots of clover on the side of the road, thought it doesn't seem to be blooming at the house yet.  The bees are still hitting the spiderwort pretty hard in the mornings before moving on to other things.  I'm seeing lots of activity, but less pollen than a few weeks ago.  So far, the flow seems less intense than it was last year, but we've gotten more rain so hopefully we'll have a longer flow than last year.