Friday, May 24, 2019

It looks like Olea's is on the way out

I went into the hive a couple of days ago.
#3- bees still on only 4 frames, but two frames had an excellent brood pattern.  The bees have not drawn new come but have cleaned the old comb.  I did see (and removed) a wax moth cocoon.  Even though the colony has not grown in the past 2 weeks, I am optimistic that it will grow and survive.
#1- I only checked the top super.  The bees had not drawn any new comb nor deposited any nectar.  I hefted the bottom super and it felt heavy.  I conclude that #1 is storing honey and will continue to do so.  I will need to inspect the bottom boxes.
Olea's- a month and and 1/2 ago, Olea's had 22 bars with bees on all of them.  Since then, the population had gradually decreased.  I thought (and still do) that it swarmed when we were away for Passover.  But it continued to see more bare comb through the window.  I hadn't planned to inspect it, but I was not tired, so I did.  I started at bar 11 and looked to bar 4.  There was not much honey and the brood pattern was spotty (picture from web).  I did not see any evidence of DWV.  I did see guanine crystals (more pictures from the web)  in some cells, a sure sign that the colony was overwhelmed by mites, leading of parasitic mite syndrome.  I had not done a mite count on Olea's and treating a top bar hive for mites is problematic.  So, Olea's is dying and I do not want it to be a mite bomb.  I put an Apiguard tray in the hive in hopes that it would markedly diminish the numbers  of mites before the colony completely dies. 
I do not intend to recolonize Olea's.  I find the top bar too hard to work and there is no good way to treat it for mites.  I plan on replacing it with a long Lang.


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