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.