Mid April, Latish Hive Inspections, Mite Game Plan

 Mid April. 

It's been a lot of years since I've waited this long to go through hives and get try to get a sense of what I had, and where problems were. I only have 12 hives left- and went through 7- these all seems OK. From pretty good (in days gone by, "average"), to weak, but with a laying queen.  No dead outs, no laying workers or unmated queens, though very little stores despite the month early blooming of maple around here.

As I write I'm looking out at a long stacked row of 150 empty supers in my back yard, and know I have another 30 or 40 out in apiaries I need to bring in. But  there's no way I'm going to need 200 supers again. Losses are just to great, and wearying.

 Which I haven't entirely accepted. And if I give it all up, there's all that equipment, and tools, and a pretty dang big collection of bee books, that I guess won't mean much. I've self-identified as a beekeeper for a lot of years, its sort of tough to think about not doing it.

Below is Easter afternoon yesterday at my favorite apiary down on Cemetery road. There are actually only 5 hives alive in this picture (though another two are off screen). That's down from 15-20 in past years, plus plenty of queen raising, swarm boxes, and mating boxes. In front, I've unpinned the winter cloth from the boxes, and there's still a bear fence ready to go. To the right is another apiary section of the same size with no hives left.

But there is a fundamental deep down pleasure in seeing the bees do OK, to get a good Spring start. Here's a decent comb with nice packed brood in one of the better hives. I think they are just getting rolling- but I make a mental note (and a paper one) that hives like this- "boomers" (though this is hardly one), are the first to crash if not tended to- first to explode with bees- and quick to swarm, and fly off to some other home. For me I Demaree- I find it by far the best method- so much easier and solid then techniques like Snelgroving (though that is apparently popular with new beekeepers).

These hives aren't edge to edge bees- below is a typical one. But it's early yet- and it's been a cold Spring for the past few weeks. Weird weather anyhow.

One hive I wintered over turned out to be still Demareed- a queen excluder still on box #1, with 2 boxes above it, with no brood (at first I thought this was a queenless hive-though full of bees- and then came upon the excluder). At first I cursed myself for leaving it in- keeping the queen down in a cold box all winter, and of course, a metal excluder sucks in the cold- its not insulated on the edges, and when it's freezing outside, its going to be freezing inside. Bad beekeeping!

Or is it? Pre-Demareed? The bees already down low taking care and heating brood- so when I show up, I'm moving up a few frames above the heated mass, and pushing down some polished empties? So maybe this is actually a  good thing- given a strongish hive that can stay low and ten the queen and brood. Something to think about anyhow. 

My 2022 plan is to give a last good punch at the mites. I have it in my head that a formic fumigator board, with homemade HBH, and the queen removed for a few days to avoid any loss, and done early- say just before blackberry, is the real secret here. For me anyhow. Knock the mites back right as their population starts to shoot up- but not just knock them back- really kill them off. I've done the boards before, and have them, but I think its the best game plan I have. I don't even read the various "theories" and more, not even ROs latest on (I assume)  how he's perfected his queens but still hasn't figure out how to make the blue towel thing work- as I'm pretty convinced that no one knows how to control mites (and he would know if someone did, for sure).