Two more weeks have passed and the last dose of Apigard needs to be removed from Green and Blue. My mother had been feeding the bees some sugar syrup and some of the honey washed from the I also wanted to try a different mite treatment on all of the hives. I made grease patties out of vegetable shortening, sugar, salt, a little honey and wintergreen oil. The theory is that the grease will impair the ability of the mites to stick onto the bees and the wintergreen oil will further antagonize them. The salt and honey are there to attract the bees. I placed the grease patties (or just smeared the mixture) onto the top bars of the frames. In theory the bees will be crawl over the patties and be greased up all through the winter. The mites are unable to breed or hide in brood cells since there are no brood during the winter and thus are very vulnerable to anything that will knock them off of the bees.
Orange: Maybe a little light in honey stores. I added an entrance reduce to reduce the risk of robbing and to try to keep mice from going into the hive looking for a warm place to spend the winter. I added an inner cover that had a notch in it to increase ventilation of moist air in the winter and to act as a second means of egress from the hive. The later is useful if the snow gets high enough to block the bottom. I also greased the top bars.
Purple: Already had an notch in the inner cover. Greased the top bars and shifted the brood boxes back so they no longer have a gap between them and the bottom board.
Green: There were a few bees in the top bur comb that I brushed away before removing the inner cover and replacing it. I also removed the dregs of the Apiguard and then greased the top bars. Below is the burr comb filled inner cover and some of the grease on newspapers.
DarkGreen: Top deep looks full of honey! So either the last blooms of the season and/or the extra feedings came through. This is very good news as I was worried that this hive would not have enough reserves to get through the winter otherwise. It already had a notched inner cover so I just greased the top bars.
Nucs: Both look light in honey. I greased them.
Blue: Seemed more aggressive than normal. I greased them. I will need to get a notched inner cover on it after I have notched a few more.
Red and Yellow: Top box looks to have an ok amount of honey. Greased the top bars. Both need notched inner covers.
I removed the empty supers that I had on some of the hives and stacked them in the bee yard. I didn’t place them directly into the barn for winter storage since I wanted them to get cold at night to discourage wax moths and there maybe less chance of one of the barn nice crawling in to make a nest.
I placed the bur comb next to a feeder to have the bees rob it out.
No comments:
Post a Comment