Treating for Varroa

Beehives in the snow and Giles with all the stuff.  This was
just before Christmas and we needed to treat the bees for the
Varroa mite by sprinkling them with a solution of Oxalic acid.
Oxalic acid burns the mouthparts of the mites so that they cannot cling on to the bees.  The first hive we treated was the one on the right hand side - we have named this the garden hive.  These bees were very quiet and didn't make much fuss.  We put some icing sugar fondant on the crown board as an extra feed and shut them up again. 

The hive on the left we have named the Temple hive - this is the hive that swarmed a second time in June and then went to the heather and made 10lbs of heather honey.  when we opened up this hive they started to come up out of the frames and fly around some of them landed in the snow and couldn't get up again.  I tried to hurry up but just knocked over my oxalic acid bottles in the snow and only just had enough to treat the hive.  I shut them up as quickly as I could but alot of them had got out and landed in the snow.  They also got some fondant for extra winter feed.   I didn't realise at the time that if I had picked up the bees and warmed them in my hand I could have thrown them back into the air and perhaps saved a few but at the time I didn't realise this.   I'm not sure whether I'll be treating with Oxalic acid next year.