Heavy winds

Strong winds were blowing two days ago. I had read that the tops of hive can be blown off, so I went out and put a stone on top. The girls all stayed home because of the wind, but today they are back out. They are bringing in a bright yellow pollen. Soon the eucalyptus will be in bloom (I think already there is a little). That pollen is white, so I'll keep an eye out for that.
Every morning there are a few dead bees on the porch, but a few days ago, there were over a dozen. I saw that two had pollen on their legs (you can see one in the center). That meant that they had been foraging, and I immediately thought of insecticide exposure. That is one thing that can wipe out the colony, so I was worried. Nothing could be done except wait. As noted above, they are buzzing and apparently healthy today and no unusual increase in bee corpses.
I spotted a robber bee trying to get in, so I replaced the entrance reducer.

Varroa treament done

I went in today and removed the Mite-away quick strips.  They looked pretty dried out.  I examined the sticky board and made a rough count of 150 mites.  Over 7 days, that's only 20+ per day.  So, was treatment necessary?  Was it helpful?  I certainly don't know.
There is a lot of honey, 6 full frames in the top super and 8 in the middle.  I was tempted to take out a frame for a taste treat but refrained.

Now I'm thinking ahead to spring.  I want to start another Langstroth hive as well as Olea's top bar hive.  I plan to split my colony to make the Langstroth and to try to capture a swarm for the top bar.  I've been reading about how to split a hive.  Several sources say to take the divided hive 3-5 miles away from the original.  I don't think I'll be doing that; I intend to ask my mentors about the necessity doing so. I will try to get my name on a couple of swarm notification lists.  I'll be making a trip to the Mountain Feed and Farm Supply for more frames, another medium super and some advice.

Treating for varroa mite

After much debate, I decided to treat the hive with formic acid. I ordered a box of 10 treatments (the smallest available) and it came last week. The formic acid has a strong acid smell that many of you will recall from chemistry lab.
It arrived after Maidi and I left for a brief trip to Las Vegas, where we saw Cirque du Soleil, Love. Then on into Utah to the Red Mountain Resort for a couple of days of hiking, swimming, biking, stretching and massage.
Today was the first opportunity to treat. The instructions say to have 7 days of between 50 and 95 degrees. The weather forecast looks like this will be the case. So into the hive!
All I did was to take off the 2 top supers and place the strips on the hive, then remove the entrance reducer and put the hive back together. I also placed the sticky sheet so that I can gleefully see how many mites die and drop off. The strips stay in for seven days, so next Monday I'll take them out.

365 mites!

The temperature reached at least 60 degrees today, so I went into the hive.
There were many frames with honey, some brood and pollen and I spotted the queen.
I dusted with powdered sugar, and did it a bit differently. I put sugar on each super rather than just on the top one and letting it fall through. I felt this would get more sugar on the brood frames where the mites would be more concentrated. Either my theory was correct or there are just a lot more mites or both. I was dismayed when I took out the sticky board and could just see hundreds of mites- 365 to be precise. Of course, there could be a small counting error, but only small.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to treat. I haven't ordered my Mite-away quick strips yet. I did email Jeremy Rose again asking for his advice. I fully expect him to tell me to treat, but I wanted to know if it is too late in the year for formic acid. I hope he answers soon and will keep you all up to date.

No bee photos today, so here is the Orr House II rose. I'm still trying to identify it. I was going to go to the Monterey Bay Rose Society meeting last week with a cutting, but we went to Cynthia's instead.
Now to the bees. I dusted with powdered sugar 3 days ago. The mite count was 27, a good number. I intend to email Jeremy Rose again after a couple of more dustings and counts to see what he thinks of the control.

47 mites

Cathy was visiting from Lexington and took a look into the hive with me on the 19th. A sunny day after several foggy days. Calm and in the low 60's. The girls were calm and we saw the queen in the lower brood box.
Honey report: there were 4 frames of capped honey in the top super and 6 in the middle super. (The middle super was heavy enough to make it difficult to lift.) Some of the honey seemed clear, as if made from sugar syrup and the rest of the frames had darker honey of various shades. I wondered if there is enough honey for the winter and if I should stop feeding them. I emailed Ian, and he replied "Sounds like you are on top of the feed situation but might want to cut back on the syrup feeding so the queen can have a rest from egg laying." So I filled the feeder for the last time. Next time I go into the hive I'll remove the feeder and leave the Vivaldi box on as the top cover.
Brood: I took a brief look in the brood box, mainly to find the queen for Cathy. There were two frames with brood and larvae; there may have been 1 or 2 more but I didn't look. The drone frame had some drawn cells, no larvae or capped cells. This is as expected since all my sources say that in the fall and winter no drones are raised. A few cells had a small amount of clear nectar or sugar syrup. I removed it and put back the frame with drawn comb.
Powdered sugar treatment: I had made a new sticky board from a plastic sheet used for fluorescent ceiling lights. We sifted powdered sugar over the hive with the top super off. A little over an hour later, I took out the sticky board and counted the mites. They were alive and kicking their little legs and trying unsuccessfully to crawl through the sugar, vaseline and debris. There were 47!
Varroa report and Jeremy Rose: Jeremy Rose is the author of Beekeeping in Coastal California. This book is written for this climate and has a month by month tutorial. It also includes photos of local plants and tells their relative importance to bees. For example, poison oak is a major nectar source in March-May. He also includes a section on Varroa control, so I emailed him regarding treating my hive. 47 mites seemed like a lot, most sources say to treat if the count is over 50 and two beekeepers in the beekeepers guild had advised to treat if one has only a single hive, but still I'm not thrilled about treating with any chemicals. Formic acid has been recommended and is non-toxic. He wrote back within hours, "47 mites is enough to treat the hive. Keep in mind that if you treat once you will probably always have to treat periodically". Naturally, my curiosity was piqued by the second sentence, so I asked him why. His response, "treating does something to make the mites reproduce more aggressively. Sugar dusting would probably be effective for you. You would need to do it weekly for maybe the next 4 weeks in order to bring the mite levels down". A bit unscientific, but good enough for me to not use formic acid or a different miticide. Back to Costco for sacks of powdered sugar!

Lots of honey and few mites

I went into the hive today. It was warm, clear and calm. My plan today was to 1) check the honey supply; 2) see if there was much/any brood, and if there was, put the drone frame in again for mite control; and 3) treat with powdered sugar.
First some explanation. The bees need honey to get through the winter when the honey flow is over and to raise brood in the spring. On my last check, there was only one frame of capped honey, not nearly enough, so I started feeding again. Today, I hefted the boxes, and they felt heavy. In the top super, there were 4 frames of capped honey and honey being made in two others. In the middle supper were several (6? I don't remember even though I counted them). There was even some in the brood box. So it looks like my girls have enough stores. I'll continue to feed them this month or until they stop taking the syrup.


There was talk of varroa control again at the last beekeepers guild meeting. My beekeeping books also recommend treating if needed at this time of year. I'm still trying to decide what the best approach is. Two experienced keepers said that if a keeper has only one hive, he should treat. Keepers with many hives expect to lose one third each year. So I figured I should treat... or maybe do another sugar roll count and be guided by that... or just go ahead and treat with formic acid (as Ian suggested). So I went online to Scientific Beekeeping. This guy is referred to often at the Beekeepers Guild and seems to know what he's talking about. In one of his articles he tells of the one-two punch of using drone frame and dusting with powdered sugar. This method appeals to me because it's non-toxic and inexpensive. In the brood box, I saw my beautiful queen bee as well as a couple of frames of brood. So I took out one frame of drawn comb and put the drone frame in. I'll take it out in 4 weeks. That's the comb on the right. It's now in the freezer for a couple of days to kill any wax moth eggs or larvae and then will be stored in a sealed bag for future use.
Next came the sugar treatment. In the picture at top is my equipment for this endeavor. First I made a sticky board. At Staples, I found a sheet of white foam board. I thought this might be work as well as Masonite. I cut a piece to fit into the beetle trap tray and made a 1" grid with a sharpie. I smeared it with vaseline to catch the mites. The plan was to sift 2 cups of powdered sugar over the frames, wait an hour and then do a mite count.
Here's what went wrong. The foam board was sitting in the sun and warped, so when I put it in, it scraped against the edge of the hive and the screen bottom. I forgot to put it in until after I sifted the sugar on. When I took it out, it again scraped on the bottom of the hive, taking off a fair amount of vaseline. I used the spatula to clean off the screen the best I could. It also spilled powdered sugar on the stand, which was being avidly eaten by many bees not from my hive. They will probably be back looking for more or to rob for several days. (I have read in Biology of the Honeybee that bees will remember where there was good foraging for many days and will return daily until the nectar (or powdered sugar) is gone. Perhaps a future blog will tell more of the things I have learned about bees.)
When I examined the sticky board, including the blobs of vaseline/sugar/pollen that I scraped off the screen, I found a total of 3 mites. This is very good, I think.