Thursday, July 27, 2017

Second supers and k wing and more

Two weeks ago I went into #3.  I was pleased at how gentle my bees are.  I had looked into another beekeepers hive a day or two earlier and now I know what a hot hive is.  His bees were pinging us immediately upon opening, and Terry, who had on cloth gloves got stung several times. When we were done, the bees still came at us even when we were nowhere near the hive and I got stung on the cheek.
#3 looked very healthy.  The super had honey and a small patch of brood.  There was a lot of brood in the brood boxes as well as many empty queen cups.
Today I looked into #2.  The super was heavy and there was uncapped honey in the side-most frame.  I saw brood and eggs in the top brood box.  I also saw one bee with k wing deformity in the hive.
K wing deformity.  Not my picture
This can be a sign of tracheal mites. The best I can tell from my sources is that there is no need to treat now.  If I see a lot of crawlers with k wing, then I will.  Fortunately, formic acid is a good way to treat and, as you all know, that is what I use to treat varroa with MAQs.  It is likely that I will be treating in the fall.
I put supers on all three hives.  For curiosity (and because I had already removed the super in order to get to the brood box) I put the new super below the old one- bottom-supering.  The super on #1 had mostly drawn frames with some old honey and pollen in some while the super in #3 has all new frames.
I successfully moved the water source to my desired location by moving it 1-2 feet at a time and the bees are still going to it.

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