Fumagilin & Screened Bottom Boards

Today the colonies received their last treatment of Fumagilin.  Fumagilin-b is an antibiotic that controls the disease Nosema, or bee dysentery.  The disease usually occurs during Winter while the bees are unable to release bodily waste each day.  The weather is too cold for the bees to fly outside to relieve themselves.  So they stay in the cluster and must hold it in for months sometimes.  If they get Nosema the bees can no longer hold it in and can make a big mess inside the hive.  Plus the stress of the disease can weaken the colony and lead to it's demise. 

In Fall each full hive gets 2 gallons of medicated syrup per twenty frames.  Last week they all got their first gallon.  Two colonies were given only one gallon since they are only ten frames in size; Myrina & Nuc #5.  The Fumagilin is put in a heavy sugar syrup, 2:1 sugar to water.  That's eight pounds of sugar in about two quarts of water.

Crystallized sugar after one gallon of 2:1 syrup

This time of year the bees will take it down in one to two days.  There is some crystallization of the sugar in the Hive Top Feeder.  To fix that i toss a quart of warm water into the feeder afterward.  It dissolves the sugar and the bees then take it down too.

Also it's time to close all the Screened Bottom Boards (SBB).  Some beeks leave them open but i close mine.  I think it helps the bees brood lower in the hive.  Slatted Racks aid that as well.  Myrina's SBB was replaced with a regular BB with a solid bottom.  Mary & Nuc #5 also have the solid BB now.  Heléna & Melissa both have the closed off SBB.  As does that little September swarm i haven't been talking about.

The next steps toward Winterization will be the final Varroa check & treatment if necessary.

*_____________________________☼______________________________*

Apistan

The Apistan went into all 3 hives today.  2 strips per box.  At 2 Deeps a hive each hive took 4 strips.  Each on the inside of the 3rd frame near the cluster.  Then in the opposite positions in the bottom box.  It staggers out the strips and I believe allows the most contact.  Staggered the strips are not on top of each other yet all four corners are covered. 

 

Installed Apistan strips

The treatment will last 45 days, ideally.  It may be snowing & 20f degrees at that time so I take it out whenever I can at around 45 days.  

Normally I'd like to have the strips in on the first of November but I was late this year.  It shouldn't be a problem though.  Instead of pulling out the strips on December 15th, they'll come out on January 1st.  Either way the queens should have stopped laying so there will be a break in the brood cycle.  Which is the best time for the Apistan to be killing the Varroa mites.  As apposed to Spring when there is no brood cycle break.  Plus I'd have to fight against the timing of the Flow & adding honey suppers; which can't be done while treating.

A 24 hour, non-sugar, sticky board drop from November 1st revealed higher than acceptable mite populations in all 3 hives.  Mary = 123, Myrina = 66, & Duchess = 103.  50 is considered the population threshold. 

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Fall Mite Count 2010

This is a pretreatment 24 hour drop count onto a sticky board.  The mite population has seemed lower than ever this year.  I didn't want to treat with chemicals so I hoped to put it off this year.

Mary - 123
Myrina - 66
Duchess - 103

So much for not treating.  I typically use Apistan but will look at Apiguard too.  Mary & Myrina's Queens are daughters of VSH queens.  I thought they might have lower counts.  Duchess is new from Georgia and likely brought some with her. 

Mary's Sticky Board

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Inspection 10/17/10

Mary
72 f
Sunny


Mary had the same crystallized sugar in her HTF as did Myrina.  Not to much but it was there.  The bees seemed calm when I started.  A good bit of bur comb too.

 Almost looks drone sized
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The frames are Plasticell from 2008.  I've not cycled any of them out yet.  Maybe next year if the comb is dark enough.  The Nosema stains are from when Mary was in the ICU last Winter.  I scraped it off along with all the propolis on the frame rests.

Top Box Frames:
10. Full capped honey - 2008 Plasticell
 9.  Full capped honey - 2008 Plasticell
 8.  Full capped honey - 2008 Plasticell
 7.  Full capped honey, drawn out oversized - 2008 Plasticell
 6.  1/2 capped honey, drawn out undersized -  2009 Plasticell
 5.  1/2 honey, 1/2 brood (back filling w/honey) -  2008 Plasticell
 4.  Full capped honey (back filling w/honey) -  2008 Plasticell
 3.  Eggs, 3/4 back filled honey, queen cup - 2008 Plasticell
 2.  Capped brood, 3/4 back filled honey - 2008 Plasticell
 1.  Full capped honey - 2008 Plasticell

Bottom Box Frames:
10. 9/10 capped honey - 2008 Plasticell
 9.  9/10 capped honey - 2008 Plasticell
 8.  9/10 capped honey - 2008 Plasticell
 7.  9/10 capped honey - 2008 Plasticell
 6.  1/2 capped honey, 1/2 pollen - 2008 Plasticell
 5.  Eggs, larva, pollen, honey, CHALKBROOD - 2008 Plasticell
 4.  Larva, pollen, honey - 2008 Plasticell
 3.  Larva, pollen, honey - 2008 Plasticell
 2.  Pollen, honey, brood - 2008 Plasticell
 1.  Pollen, honey, brood - 2008 Plasticell

Spotty pattern but it's the end of the season
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After pulling all the frames & scraping all the propolis I felt the bees needed even more agitation.  So I pulled off the bottom box and dumped and cleaned the solid BB.  The bees temperament was fine, until then.  They didn't come after me but they did take to the air with a vengeance.  Well, of course they did, their hive looked like the Scarecrow after a fight with the Flying Monkeys!  After I put it all back together it took an hour before they had calmed down.  And yet not a single headbutt or found stinger in the jacket.

Incidentally, under the BB was a huge Black Widow and her egg case; which was as big as a golf ball.  She got mashed and the eggs were thrown into the woods.

The Chalkbrood was very minor; only a few cells.  This queen seems strong enough so I'm not inclined to worry about it.  If i see it again in Spring I'll requeen.  Interestingly enough Mary never received a screened bottom board this year.  I left the solid BB on in Spring when her population was critical; she needed heat to brood up.  I never got around to fabricating her one this Summer and now here we are.  I can't say if they're related but I wonder why this hive has always had Chalkbrood in it, and through the reign of 3 queens now.  Quite suspicious.

So for once Mary looks good.  What a turn around after last winter.  Her stores are looking good, she still has plenty of brood, and her population looks great.  All of this from the 2 cups worth of bees that survived last Winter.  My options then were to let the colony die and use their hive for a new package or take extreme measures to aid them.  I'm glad I did what I did.  I now know how to bring back a colony from the population brink.  Think of it, originally not enough bees to cover half a deep frame!  And now...

...Here is just 1 of her pollen frames

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The decision whether to requeen every year has not been made.  Ideally I would use queens I reared.  I was hoping to rear queens this year but we couldn't even produce enough honey.  I will feel better about making my own queens once the bees & I have had a truly productive and successful year.  If I need to requeen I'll get more queens from Bobby again, or someone local.

I'll do a Varroa check this week to see where that population is going.  The whole year I've not seen a mite except in blown-up photos.  My neighbor did a 24 hour drop check in her 2 hives and counted only 11 & 13 mites Total!  I believe mine will be near the same. 

I'll feed the bees a few more times before Winter.  Include in that a Fumagillin treatment.  We'll see about the Apistan treatment.  If I can avoid it I will.

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Inspection 10/11/2010

Myrina
85 f
Sunny


Time to look into Myrina and see if she's ready for Winter.  This was very different.  As soon as the cover was off I could tell everything had changed.  They weren't angrily attacking the smoke.  They were all the same color.  They didn't even mind when I shook my hand back & forth over the open box.  These bees were no longer evil mean bees but, dare I say, regular bees, Hallelujah! 

Top Box Frames:
10.  Thin drawn, 1/2 capped honey - 2010 Crimped-Wire (CW)
 9.  3/4 capped honey - 2010 CW
 8.  Full capped honey - 2010 CW
 7.  Full capped honey - 2009 Plasticell
 6.  1/2 honey, 1/2 brood (eggs), Marked Queen -  Old CW
 5.  1/2 honey, 1/2 brood (back filling w/honey) -  Old CW
 4.  1/2 honey, 1/2 brood (back filling w/honey) -  Old CW
 3.  3/4 capped honey, some pollen - Old CW
 2.  3/4 capped honey, some pollen - Old CW 
 1.  3/4 capped honey, some pollen - Old CW

Bottom Box Frames:
10.  Drawn, empty - 2009 Plasticell
 9.  Drawn, empty - 2009 Plasticell
 8.  1/2 capped honey - 2009 Plasticell
 7.  3/4 capped honey - 2009 Plasticell
 6.  3/4 capped honey, some pollen - 2009 Plasticell
 5.  1/2 capped honey - 2010 CW (Depleted)
 4.  1/2 capped honey & pollen -  2009 Plasticell
 3.  1/2 pollen & capped honey - 2009 Plasticell
 2.  Undrawn - 2010 CW (Depleted)
 1.  Undrawn - 2010 CW (Depleted)

Depleted means the bees took wax from these frames and used it somewhere else.  It's ugly and looks like this.

Drawn Out
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Undrawn
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So the top box is heavy and the bottom box is light.  There is about 1 more month before cold weather sets in.  I'll continue feeding, but at an increased rate.  As usual I add Apple Cider Vinegar to the syrup.

Queen Myrina was found on frame 6 in the top box.  She looked busy.  This was the first time I've seen her since the requeening.  

Even if I hadn't seen her there were plenty of eggs already on the frame.

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The Hive Top Feeder has been tricky going.  The bees keep propolising the vent holes closed.  It takes about a week for the bees to do it.  I clean it off when I feed but it's getting old.

Every week

This is new to this year.  They never did it last year.  I'll need to ask around to see if this is good behavior or not.  Also the syrup keeps crystallizing.  Again, that never happened last year.  I don't know what's so different now.  More studying then...

2:1 Rock Candy

Myrina's population looked good but not heavy.  The two requeenings probably didn't help (one on her own before I introduced the later queen).

The only question I have now is what to do with the handful of Varroa mites in the hive.  I never saw them during the inspection.  Only after looking at the photo's could I find any.  Very few indeed.  I'll talk to some older beeks and see what they recommend.

Oh, and here's something we all want to see this time of year.

Fully Capped CW

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Update

It's been awhile since I've updated.  The Summer has been terribly busy and the bees didn't really produce honey again so my motivations were elsewhere.  I kept up with the bees just didn't post about it here.  Nothing major happened so no critical information was lost.

The few things that did happened are:
* The 2010 Package has been named 'Duchess'.  We meant to name her after she showed some personality traits.  I like to name the bee queens after some human queen with the same personality. During the interim we took to calling her Duchess; like an heir apparent before naming.  After a while it just stuck.  Her personality is great.  Mostly calm and very productive.  On days where Mary & Myrina are sitting on their respective porches Duchess is always flying and bringing in the goods.  She was slow to kick out the drones but I thinks she's still on Georgia time.  We will soon be into Winter which will be her biggest test.

* I pulled out all the Pierco drone frames from the hives early.  They don't work well with me.  One needs to have two to fill a spot, not one.  As you pull one out it needs replaced by another.  It takes awhile before the bees can fully draw it out.  Meanwhile drone eggs are being laid in whatever good cells it has. The queen doesn't jump onto the frame the moment you install it either; it can take a few days.  Yet, you need to freeze it every twenty days regardless.  I never had more then a fist sized patch of capped brood on a frame going into the freezer.  Which caused me wonder how many honey making worker bees weren't produced all this time?  However, these frames would be great in a honey supper.  Bigger cells equals less wax which equals more honey.  So I'll cut down the frames to fit into a medium honey supper for next year.

* As mentioned above the harvest was pitiful.  Only three quarts of honey.  The bees never drew out the frames in the honey supers.  One super had been drawn out the year before.  What little honey was still in it from 2009 was to draw the bees into the super this year.  It sorta worked.  They filled it some more but there were few full frames.  I don't know what the issue is but we can not currently produce honey.  Maybe its the excluder or their temperament or the plasticell or I just suck as a beek!  I don't know.

* Done with Plasticell!  It has qualities I like but the bees in Mary & Myrina do not agree with me.  This year I pretreated each frame with a extra heavy coating of their own wax plus a thick sugar spray.  But the bees just wouldn't go for it.  Which drives me crazy.  When I started all of this they took to the Plasticell I put in their brood boxes.  It replaced the old black comb left in by the farmer.  Very frustrating.  I've gone to crimped-wire now.  I also treat it with the sugar spray.  One of the reasons i like the rigid foundation is for spinning survival.  We had honey the first year.  All of it fell apart during extraction.  Oh well.  I'll reinforce the crimped-wire with horizontal wire too.  Did I mention that Duchess (the 2010 package) couldn't care less about the foundation.  I put a post extraction super on her to clean it out.  After a week of rain I pulled it off.  She had begun to draw out all the frames!  Good little bees...

* I began feeding all three colonies in September.  I gave each if them a gallon of 1:1 each week.  It scared me the way they would put down the gallon in under 24 hours.  We had a significant dearth here to start with but the girls have bee doing well lately on whatever is out there.  The 1:1 helped them finish drawing out a few frames replaced in June.  Now into October they're getting a 2:1 syrup.  It is crystallizing before they can take the whole amount.  I'll need to do something about that.  Still I only feed once a week.  A 50 lb bag equals 2 feedings.  That gets expensive fast at several feeding a week.  I'll assist for now.  A check of their stores this week will help me gauge how to continue.

* Varroa mites have not been a problem either.  Last Winter beat up everybody.

That's all for now.

*

Inspection 5/15/10

2010 Hived Package (Duchess)
82 f
Partly Sunny


There have been reports of Small Hive Beetle in the packages that many of us received back in April.  My neighbor found one in her new hive and has since taken measures to control it.  I went into the new hive today looking to see if I could find any; hoping I wouldn't.  I went through each frame and didn't see any.  But I missed the Queen as well, and she's marked,  so I'll continue to watch for them.

The Hive top feeder was about at the empty mark.  What little was left had a thin crystallized cap on it.  I didn't get to it earlier this week due to a bout with the flu.  Nothing too bad, just enough to keep me inside.  I'll refill the HTF and monitor it better this time.

Only about a cup of syrup is left under a sheet of rock candy

The brood nest has grown at a modest rate.  3 undrawn frames remain while the rest are filled with brood, pollen, & honey. The first frames to have comb have a spotty brood pattern look to them.  The latter drawn frames have a more contiguous pattern.  I'm sure that's just an issue with cell availability at the beginning of the hive. 

Check the bur comb on the Drone frame

  Frames:

1. Undrawn
2. 1/2 drawn. Eggs, pollen, capped honey
3. Fully drawn. Mostly brood, lots of eggs and larva.  Pupae & Capped honey.  *Odd comb structure (the sheet not a cell)
4. Fully drawn. Eggs & pupae
5. Fully drawn. Eggs & mostly pupae. Some drone cells maybe.  hatching bees.
6. Fully drawn. Pupae, capped honey, pollen 
7. Done Frame - Fully drawn. Patch of pupae, some capped honey.  Mostly uncapped honey.
8. 1/4 drawn. Capped honey.
9. Undrawn
10. Undrawn

None of the frames had been propolised together.  Very clean throughout the hive.  The colony looks good.  It may be time for me to add the next Deep hive body.  
 

Frame 5 where the Queen cage was hung
 

Above you can see a spotty brood pattern in the middle of the frame.  That is where the Queen cage hung during installation.  After which the bees filled the hole with comb.  So that area lags behind the rest of the frame.  Currently it has eggs, pollen, & honey in it.
 

 Pierco Drone Frame

These frames would be great in Honey suppers.  They hold more honey because there is less wax.  The cell size is much bigger than the other frames to fit the larger size of the drone bees.  The queen can tell what kind of egg to place in a cell by feeling the size of a cell with her front legs.  Therefore all the eggs laid in this frame will become drones.  This frame is noticeably heavier than the other frames.  

Odd thing is that these bees like to bur comb the plastic.  This is the only frame to have bur comb both on the top and the bottom.  Maybe they don't like the plastic.  I know I'm liking it less & less in the brood chambers, meaning the plasticell & the Pierco drone frame.  At Dadant's the other day all I bought was crimped-wire wax foundation.  

Bur comb on the bottom of the Hive top feeder

Can you guess where the plastic drone frame was?  I'm not yet sold on the notion of using a drone frame to reduce to number of Varroa mites.  Yes it works, i'm sure, but I'd rather have a frame producing thousands of bees than drones & mites.  And since the frame is to be frozen before the drones hatch, to kill the mites, the frame really doesn't produce anything at all for the hive.  It may be that I will take them out for now.  In the event of a mite infestation I could put them back in then.  In the meantime I can be producing lots of bees.

A question of Supersedure came up during the last inspection.  I could not find and Queen cups of Supersedure cells.  However, I didn't find the marked Queen either.  There are lots of new eggs on the outer frames though.  So I don't know what to say.  An experienced beek told me her packaged bees may have superseded after only 22 days in the hive!  So both of us are interested in what these girls do.  Hopefully I'll find the queen next week.

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Inspection 8/9/9

Mary & Myrina
95 F
Sunny

Mary
Many bad things here. Varroa mites, watered bee bread, chalk-brood, many dead bees in the hive, little to no new brood, spotty pattern, two possible supercedure cells. Am I losing her? Did I accidentally mash the queen during the last inspection? I think it's time to be in panic mode.

(click me)
Red circle = Withered wings

Green circles = Chalk/Foul brood
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(click me)
Green circles = Varroa mite
Blue circle = Dead bee

She is now down to two brood boxes, an excluder, & a honey super (1/3 full)

Myrina
It seamed like I've seen more bees working at the entrance. Yet there is very little new brood in the hive. I will keep an eye on her to see if she develops similar symptoms to Mary.

She has drawn no honey comb this year. I took off the honey supers. She's only two brood boxes now.

Inspection 3/9/9

The girls have had a great week with temp's in the 70's. The Red Maples & Daffodils have bloomed to start the pollen season. The pollen of which seems pale in color. All the rain we had from December to now has replenished the creek and both seep ponds. So it looks like the year will start well enough.

Mary. The Apistan strips have been in place for 45 days so today I took them out. She has changed some, I think for the better. First she had a nice clump of brood near the center of the Winter bee mass. This was unfortunately ripped apart when I separated the hive bodies. Yet that brood alone was more than I saw back in Fall when I tried to re-Queen. Also, The response to smoke has improved. instead of all the bees scrambling out of the hive onto the ground they mostly stayed inside. Some still bailed but only a few. The great majority went deeper into the hive looking for honey. That is the response I like to see. It's more like the productive hives I had last Summer. Added to her was a new telescoping cover. I am very suspicious of a ventilation problem in Mary. As I opened her up I noticed that the bees were already venting on the bottom board. The other hive was having no such problem. Also there was the Winter moisture issue. I had a good bit of water condense in the hive and spill out the opening.

Myrina. Again the Apistan strips came out. She is still the same. I detected no problems in her and she is still mean. Every time I hit them with smoke they take to the air to find the culprit. I could not find any stingers in my suit so she seams at least docile. Just aggressively docile!? I had to stop smoking her just to put the hives back together so no bees would be crushed.

Now is the time for any medications to be used. This is the first time I'll be doing that. I've read some and talked some to local keepers. I am somewhat nervous about it but should start soon.

The hives generally looked good. The girls had plenty of honey left in reserve. My occasional feedings with the entrance feeders worked well. I had purchased a bag of Megabee last fall to make patties. They never finished the few I gave them. I may give them the rest of the bag as dry this Spring to get rid of it.

Now it time to figure out what I want to do this year.

Apistan Strips

So today's temp was above 50F. I've had the strips for 2 weeks now and have been waiting for just such a day as this to put them in the hives. The girls are buzzing around enjoying a little Winter sun.

As soon as I open Mary's cover I see trouble (again!). There was a small puddle of water resting on the inner cover. We've had no rain for a week or so; so why the water?. Plus the water had saturated the inner cover completely. When I looked underneath at the hive body & frames I saw them covered in a greenish sooty mold. Mind you that the hive is loaded with bees. I do use an entrance feeder. Have been for months. Yet I've never seen this type of problem before.

Yes it's true that both hives are currently made up of two deep hive bodies with a honey super on top. The bees of neither colony did much in the supers before Winter. I was hoping they would draw out the frames and make some honey, or store pollen, for them to use. The super are mostly empty. The bees ball up down in the deep hives.

So, I have one hive with water & mold damage. I don't know if Myrina will be the same. I quickly place the strips where they need to be in both deep hives. I leave the super off and close the covers. Then on to Myrina. Fortunately she is dry on the inside. In go her strips and more sugar syrup for both colonies. Her super comes off too.

I'll scrub, bleach, rinse, dry, then freeze Mary's super & frames. Myrina's will go straight into the deep freeze. Now I must go and find out why There is water in my hive. Maybe condensation, I don't know.

Varroa Mites

Over the Holidays we had many guests show up to visit. As usual I showed off my bees with an inspection one warm afternoon. Each person gets their photo taken holding a deep frame plus a spoonful of honey off that frame. Lots of smiles and frantic laughs (not all are comfortable around bees).

While looking at the images a day or so later I saw them. VARROA MITES on the backs of a few bees. I hate reminders that I've been beekeeping for less that a year. Should have put in strips back in November. Anyway I go to the local Dadant store only to learn they can not sell chemicals anymore; or until they get a pesticide license. So now I must do it online. Fine the order has been made.

However while in the Dadant shop I talked to a guy with 160 hives, he said he was not commercial. He told me of a devise he bought that cleans or disinfects hive with vaporized vinegar. Some machine he bought from its creator in North Carolina. He told me that by pumping the vapor into a hive for 30 seconds just about everything would be cured. He then went on about how we use too much chemicals in our hives as it is. I'll need to research this some more of course.

The practice of using powdered sugar came up as well. I don't think, though, that Mary would survive it.

Anyway the strips will be here soon and the hives will be treated. I'm not big into chemicals but without the experience I'll keep to the tested ways for now. Mary's re-Queening never took. There was a Queen in the hive that I could not find. SO, Mary is still quite weak. Bad brood quantity and patterns all last Fall. Plus she continued with that odd trait off pouring out onto the ground during inspections (hence thumbs down with powdered sugar as the nights are in the 20's). Myrina still seems in good condition.

I am looking forward to next year. I have already though of acquiring 2 more hives.