Pleasant Apiaries, The Mite Fight Report, and Toothpicked Queen Cells

It's a week into June- this whole year, and the year before that, have gone by so fast. With beekeeping, all those plans I made at the end of 2020, now have a chance to be applied, and I am doing my best- though I admit not whole heartedly- to make them happen. Two things to prevent, swarms and mite infestations, and one thing to try for- a good honey crop. And of course, healthy bees that will live through the coming winter.

Above is one of may favorite apiaries, where I usually keep 15 or so hives, and raise queens. This year there are fewer, 8 or so hives, and I'm not sure I'll raise queens- I just have a few mating boxes with queen cells. All the missing hives died from mites, and not because I've been neglectful. I put mu full energies into this last year, for naught, and in years before that too- constantly trying to get a handle on them, trying new things, monitoring, and constantly surprised at my continued failures.  My mantra last Fall was to study RO's advice more intently, and really take a look at how to apply his spreadsheet, and to time my treatments in a more scientific way- depending on what the spreadsheet suggested, and not what I "guessed" was happening in the field. Last year I was convinced that the commercial treatments were ineffective, and devoted myself to constant OAV. Also a disaster (don't do this).

The puzzle in the whole thing is how mites get to just a few pre-Blackberry, to many thousands in July. OAV all Spring, showing very few, then relapsing treatments in June during the nectar flow, and then- never catching up.

So I set up multiple scenarios with RO's spreadsheet (made a YT video even on my findings), and again and again, the single most important time to treat was late May and early June. More than January even. Wait past June 1, and everything gets worse the longer one waits. This is easily tested in RO's spreadsheet- and with multiple scenarios.

So I was convince that i needed to treat now- this past week- and with something serious, not OA, that went into the capped brood. I've had disasters with flash formic, so used Formic Pro. Per RO, I should have seen many hundreds of mites drop with such a treatment (I can share why this is, but in another post).

Instead- surprise, surprise- I saw only a tiny kill. In a strong hive, less than 10, over the course of treatment. A few outliers I didn't check. But how could this be? For the mite population to be low now makes no sense- there is not way it can reproduce to the numbers I see post flow. 

So- I'm dismayed. Yet another failure- not seeing what one expects to see, based on the expert advice of the most knowledgeable people I know of.  It definitely sets me to thinking of getting out of the whole thing- 27 years of doing this, and a good five chasing my tail trying to keep hives alive. So many beekeepers I know have given up, and I wish there were a few left to compare notes with.

It's a bit tiring too as no one I know keeps bees anymore- and my mentor, gave up years ago. So its  like working in a vacuum, and talking to oneself. I read the old books for non-mite info, but have to rely on the internet for mite issues- which surprisingly, remain as mysterious as ever (no one, not even RO, has an method yet to control them that works).  The folks I have connected with online have entirely different issues. and either don't have serious mite issues, or don't see them, so they aren't very helpful either on this topic. So, I am thinking of getting out of it. If I go into winter with a mite load in my hives, I'm out of it.

Which would mean not being out with the hives in a place like this:

Switching topics:

One of the things that happens with FA is the bees fan. Which makes the FA work- NOD requires a full open horizontal entry, not an open screened bottom, as bees fan horizontally, and this is the mechanism that gets the FA to pass through the combs. The bees want the acid to exit the hive. Here's the next day- fanning- and not because of a nectar flow:

Also, a beginning beekeeper called me a few days ago to say she had a new hive of Carniolans that swarmed (after only  two months of having them- sheesh- who wants Carniolans? ). So I went by to see if we could catch the swarm , but  when I got there, the swarm had returned to the hive, and after a few adventures, we went through the initial hive and I think found close to 20 fat queen cells- a good 5 or so had hatched, and none had been destroyed. Not a big hive either.  Soon we found a queen- which was the queen that swarmed I thought (acted like one) and I marked her , but we soon found another fat happy queen. Undoubtedly, more were there too, put queen 2 in a new box with all the brood (sort of a Demaree method for queen #1) , and we started cutting all the cells, and I salvaged about 6, which I installed with toothpicks into mating boxes at my home apiary.

Here are three (upper left):

And close up, one tooth pick showing:

Tomorrow I'll check these out- to see if they hatched. It was a warm day when we cut them, and I'm not sure they made it.