Surprises. Not as expected. Carnage.
Part of beekeeping- I am reminded of almost always- is that once i sort of think I have some small part figured out, it flips around, and I don't. Constant humbling. Its not the bees, I don't think, I imagine the same thing would happen if one raised termites (for some reason). Dogs, cats, horse, sure, they have challenges, but we only parted ways from them 100 milion years ago, not like a billion years. I made that up. But its true, its another life form, with as much experience evolving as us, but for them, it worked earlier.
What didn't work for me, and shocked me, was the mite treatment this year. I used the same last year, but this year, waking up and looking out at the hives in the morning, there was carnage. Dead larvae pulled out and dropped in front of each hives, lots of body parts, lots of bee clustering out in front. The treatement is basically herbal- but super strong smelling- and bees, smelling, I think with their feet- hate it. And this year, I left the bottom mite boards off all summer, and just put them back when I treated. So it was like this dense fog of menthol in there, and for xome reason- they started pulling out brood.
Did the brood die? And then they pulled it out? Oddly, a lot of the corpses are crippled drones- wings undeveloped. That seems strange. Like why would they die first? Did yellow jackets get the smaller brood before I woke up?
I don't know- I am guessing the reaction was a matter of shock- a freely breathing hive suddenly closed down with a menthol gas- and I should have taken a few steps toward it (closed it down earlier, introduced the medicine skower).
However- it killed thousands of mites! I swept then off the boards in the evening, and was astounded. More mites than I have ever seen at once- and after a summer of powder sugar treatments. Could it be the open bottom boards?
Plus- as soon as this went in, they totally stopped feeding. From a quart a day to zero.
Lots of surprises.
What didn't work for me, and shocked me, was the mite treatment this year. I used the same last year, but this year, waking up and looking out at the hives in the morning, there was carnage. Dead larvae pulled out and dropped in front of each hives, lots of body parts, lots of bee clustering out in front. The treatement is basically herbal- but super strong smelling- and bees, smelling, I think with their feet- hate it. And this year, I left the bottom mite boards off all summer, and just put them back when I treated. So it was like this dense fog of menthol in there, and for xome reason- they started pulling out brood.
Did the brood die? And then they pulled it out? Oddly, a lot of the corpses are crippled drones- wings undeveloped. That seems strange. Like why would they die first? Did yellow jackets get the smaller brood before I woke up?
I don't know- I am guessing the reaction was a matter of shock- a freely breathing hive suddenly closed down with a menthol gas- and I should have taken a few steps toward it (closed it down earlier, introduced the medicine skower).
However- it killed thousands of mites! I swept then off the boards in the evening, and was astounded. More mites than I have ever seen at once- and after a summer of powder sugar treatments. Could it be the open bottom boards?
Plus- as soon as this went in, they totally stopped feeding. From a quart a day to zero.
Lots of surprises.
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