Hive Clean

Ok so the hive clean arrived and we met up on Sunday afternoon to treate the Garden hive.  Hive clean has to be at body temperature so I had one sachet tucked under my bee suit and off we went, Greg, Suzanne, Sam and me.  Unfortunately it is very difficult to get the hive clean sticks open with your marigolds on we eventually managed it using a hive tool but the stuff then squirted out in all directions and not exactly on the bees. So we sent Sam back for another stick with slightly better success.  Note to self - bring a pair of scissors next time.

Second job was to have another attempt at putting the Temple hive on a mesh floor which is better for controlling Varroa.  We have taken delivery of a milk crate to use as a hive stand.  So the boys lifted the hive while Suzanne and I moved the wheel hub which was the old hive stand and replaced it with a milk crate and mesh floor.  Now I can monitor the Varroa in this hive and we will find out if I need to treat this hive as well.

 Here we are substituting the solid floor for a mesh one on the Temple hive.

From this picture you can see the state of my garden in the
winter.  At least the water drains away from the bees.  You can just see the Temple hive behind my right shoulder.

The all important varroa sticks - next treatment is in 6 days.

Varroa problem

 It is hard to make out from this photo but the large blobs on the board are Varroa mites.  By placing this corrugated plastic board under the hive open mesh floor, I have been able to count the dead mites dropping off the bees using a magnifying lamp.  I have been monitoring the Garden hive and we have a substantial Varroa problem.  We have a varroa mite drop of 17 a day - this is extremely high for this time of the year and our bees will be at risk of viruses and ill health if we do not act quickly.

Since we have already treated them with Oxalic acid before Christmas we do not have many options at the moment because the weather is still too cold for some varroa treatments.  We have decided to use a product called Hive clean.
 Hive Clean is supposed to be very effective against Varroa as it encourages the bees to groom themselves and each other and apparently the varroa also fall off the bees and die.

A week ago we (Suzanne, Greg and Sam and I) cleaned off the hive floors and checked that the bees had enough food by hefting the hives and we gave them some sugar fondant for good measure, see picture.

Unfortunately we weren't able to change the floor of the Temple hive from solid to mesh because we are using an old wheel hub from Charles's racing car as a hive stand and the mesh floor is too wide to fit on.  So we have been unable to monitor this hive for varroa so far. 

I also have to remember to fit the mouseguards back on the hives.

Calculating daily mite drop.

I've been reading about how some bees are learning to get rid of Varroa mites by cleaning them off one another.  I realised I have done very little about varroa until I treated with Oxalic acid back before Christmas.  I have decided to check on how infested the bees are by calculating the daily mite drop.

Mite fall onto the floor of the hive all the time so I have put an inspection board under the mesh floor and take it out regularly and count the varroa mites that are present divided by the number of days you left the board in the hive = the daily mite drop.  Too many and you must treat the hive again in the spring.
There were six mites this morning, so we'll see how we go.

Bees are flying

this afternoon, it was lovely and sunny and the bees were out in force.  They must be desperate
for some fresh air and exercise and were making the most of the sunshine.  A lot were landing on the
trampoline maybe because it is blue they were attracted to the colour.  I haven't got any flowers out in
my garden yet so there was no forage for them.