In Rain and Mud and Snow, and On a Roof, Vaping Mites

 The year begins with snow and cold, and then came the inevitable PNW mess of it all melting into mud and a constant rain- a real downpour, I met an old man from the Sudan yesterday, at the hospital, who asked: why do you live here? It always rains!

I couldn't say- sort of shrugged my shoulders.

For beekeepers here- all this means picking a good time to treat with OAV is tough. You can't just treat a hive when its cold- in the cold the hive is a tight ball- and the OAV just coats the outer shell. Proof of this is in how many mites you find if you treat a few weeks later- where there should be few, there are often as many, or more. They survived the first round- meaning, it wasn't that effective. And just a few surviving mites will make a big difference by summer.

So I geared up to treat a few hives today. First thing you need to do is clear out the dead bees from the bottom board (if you want to count mites- the board has to be clear so they'll fall through). This can be depressing- in winter, anytime after November, it can be a shocker. Totally important to do though, as easily a blanket of bees can fall that clog the exits.

So here's a hive on my roof (I just did roof hive today, in the pouring rain, almost dark,  trying to avoid slipping off in what snow remained), and I've scraped out a modest amount of dead bees. Maybe 300? Not bad- but still, no fun to see. 

A hive with its pulled out dead- and a rag at the entry for the OAV treatment.

At the same time I get the Oxivap going - and it breaks in doing so. Sheesh. Great tool- but it keeps breaking on me- seems like it needs more quality control. In this case the handle fell off due to a few tiny poor welds. Still usable- barely.

Second thing to do is pull the mite board and scrape off a 
few months of legs, wax, and mold off- then close it up a vape

Rain, rain, rain- its all tough when its cold and rainy, as you can't 
even tell if the hives are alive. So you treat them all, and wait
for a sunny day.

After vaping all- I do a full teaspoon of OA unless the hive is less than three deeps tall- I wrap them all back up in the weed cloth I use. On a roof there's a lot of splash- a lot of rain splashing back on the hives, and the paper lets that drain out (except on the underside- the bottom board). These hives have been on this low slope (2:12) roof for at least 20 years- and I've pretty much worn the roof to a nubbins in walking on it and sweeping it. Still- knock on wood- no leaks, though its really time for a replacement. Which means pulling the hives off the roof- which means a lot of work- which means I probably won't. 

January can be a pretty tough mental month for me, yet I'm trying to keep optimistic about making the coming year a good one for beekeeping. I'll probably buy a few packages even- try to get my stock back up- and focus on keeping the mites at bay, and the timing right for honey production. It'd be easy to sell it all, or give it all away to some young beekeeper- and find a new hobby- but I think I'll see how the year goes, and maybe think about ditching it in the following year- of, as inevitably has happened in the past 5 years, or 10, it doesn't go so well.

Maybe find a good old man hobby. I just bought a few books on ants for example- I know nothing about them, but I'm a great admirer of the late E.O. Wilson, and have plenty of his books (had, but stupidly sold, his full volume Ants before I knew I was interested (and, as a young 17 year old, visited Harvard in my school search (back then you could get in anywhere), and stayed with a student of his, who's house was full of boxes of living ant colonies). 

Or geology- of which I am amassing books- and my brother is a geologist so could help (but its so dang complex), or something very mundane like grasses - of which I've also purchased a few recent books, also, of spiders (which totally I don't like and freak me out from years of being a contractor and crawling in crawlspaces). There's a lot. I still have 100 vials of pollen to make slides of. I still have a beautiful valley to paint and draw and walk in. And maybe- like Candide- turning back to my own garden here- though I am not much of a gardener and have only a postage stamp of a yard, could be a substitute for beekeeping.

Lots to consider- and a birthday- 62- in just a few weeks. A birthday shared by Robert E Lee, recently disgraced, but I still have plenty of books of earlier generations honoring him, and Mohammed Ali. I'm not appreciating, as I should be, age. But maybe no one really does. And in the end, maybe I just keep at beekeeping.