Mites galore

I did a 6-day sticky board count.  This is what I saw:

The square is 2 inch/side.  Since you all have been following this blog, you know that the brownish ovals are mites.  I did not bother to count the mites; there were hundreds on this board.  I treat if there are more than 4 per day I knew treatment was needed and soon.  I have been seeing some bees with deformed wings, also not a good sign.
It is a good thing I had recently ordered more MAQs.  I put the formic acid in #1 & 3 yesterday.  I only had two spacers.  I made a third yesterday and put the MAQ in #2 today.  I was pleasantly surprised by the new packaging of the strips which made them much easier to handle and place.
The raspberries have bloomed but the honey bees have seemingly not yet found them, only the bumble bees. 
Soon I will take the bees from the nuc and put them in Olea's hive.

The entrance of the nuc

Into #3 with Mihir

Karly and Mihir were here for a couple of days and I persuaded Mihir to go into the hives with me.  Karly stayed way back and took pictures.

We did a thorough inspection of #3 and checked #1 & 2 for honey.
The top super of #3 was light.  There was nectar in the bottom super.  There was also some brood and eggs in the super.  There was lots of brood in the top brood box and some in the bottom box.  Two frames were all drone brood.  I again considered culling them but, out of laziness, just left them alone.
Hive #1 continues to look the strongest.  I am a bit worried about #2.  Probably at the next warm spell (it is raining today) I will shake the bees of the nuc into Olea's hive and add the frames of brood to #2.
I put sticky boards in yesterday and may treat all hives with MAQ if the mite count is up.  I just purchased three more super boxes with frames and foundation as I expect (hope for) a strong honey flow, what with all this rain.
I cleaned out the trays from under the screen bottoms a few days ago.

This is a close up of the debris.  I took it because I was curious about the white curvy things.  My sources think they are bit of pupae that have been removed for hygienic purposes.  Either the pupae were infested with mites or ill in some other way.  In the debris you can see lots of chewed off caps of brood cells (tan bowl-shapes) some wax (clear plates), some pollen balls and, unfortunately, a few mites.  There are even a couple of small beetles that almost always are in the trays.  I do not know what they are but I am sure they are not small hive beetles.

After the fall

There was a break in the storms today with the temperature up to 60, so I took advantage and looked into #1.  We have all been curious about how it fared from its misadventure 9 days ago.  Well....
it is doing great!

The top of the top brood box

 The colony is very strong as you can see above by the number of bees covering the tops of the frames.

Compare my hive to this photo of a strong hive taken from The Guildford Dragon News' Beekeeper's Notes.
There was nectar some capped honey and even brood in the super.

A frame from the super of #1

There was brood in both brood boxes and I saw eggs in the top brood box.  The colony is expanding still.  I added a second super.
I checked how #2 was getting on.  The super felt light and the colony was not nearly as strong as #1.

The top of the top box of #2

Needless to say, I did not add a second super.  I have been considering giving #2 a boost by adding a frame or two of brood from the nuc.  Perhaps I should have done that today.  If I decide to do so, I will need to was a few days for this next expected series of storms to blow by.
#3 is somewhere between 1 and 2 in strength.  There is unripe honey in the super and a very small amount of brood.  I added a second super and checker-boarded two frames with honey into it from the lower super.
About a week ago I read an article about solitary bees.  There was an un-splittable log (even by Seth) lying in the yard.  On impulse, I got out the drill and made a solitary bee motel 6.