Continue Feeding or Treat for Varroa again?

I've been worried for the last week or so that the count of Varroa mites falling onto the inspection tray as been far too high, so taking advice I bought some more Apiguard with the intention of starting treatment this weekend.

But on Saturday the weather was so nice and the forecast good for Sunday that I decided to feed one more time and then treat on Sunday. However there were 5 bees with deformed wings on the ground in front of the hive trying to fly, a sign that Varroa levels maybe too high.

Too high levels of Varroa can lead to the colony not surviving the winter!

I opened the hive on Sunday with the intention of doing a full inspection and hopefully get on last look at the Queen before leaving them be until March. Horror, the bees had managed to break into the feeder and floating in the sugar solution must have been over 100 bees in various stages of drowning! I took the feeder tray and eke off and set to with the inspection, would get back to the drowning bees at the end.

It was very obvious the bees had been busy with all that sugar solution they had been eating, lots of stores and new honey comb, as I came to the frames in the centre that I had not increased in size to brood and a half I found I couldn't remove the frames, the bees had build so much comb and bonded it to the sides of the hive that the frames were stuck fast, I didn't realise this until I forced the first frame out only to see a big lump of comb fall to the floor of the hive and another section tear apart with brood becoming exposed! Time to stop the inspection before I did any more damage, I hadn't seen the Queen so will now have to sweat it out until the New Year and hope I didn't harm her in my clumsy inspection!

So frames all put back, Apiguard tray installed and now time to see how many bees I could salvage from the sugar solution. I hope I saved about 20 of them but will never know for sure, I fished those still moving out and put them on the hive landing board in the hope that the other worker bees would clean the solution off them.

At the end I was covered in sticky solution and very popular with the bees and wasps, I beat a hasty retreat to the house with sticky buckets etc to clean up.

Fingers crossed all will be ok, don't like the idea of not feeding them, so I've made some sugar fondant, which is currently drying on a radiator, I'm told you shouldn't feed and treat at same time but will give it a try.

If they survive the winter I will have some fun in March trying to sort out the mess I have allowed the bees to make of the hive! But I have the winter to work out the best plan of attack, at the moment I am thinking that perhaps I should revert to ordinary sized brood frames, but I'm sure i will change my mind many times! :-)

Greedy Bees

Having topped up the feeder on Saturday with 2 pints of sugar solution I wasn't expecting to see much change when I checked tonight, wow all gone! Perhaps it was because I had lowered the feeding tray and it was easier for the bees to get to the food?

This time I filled feeder with 4 pints of sugar solution, the clever money is on the bees eating this by Thursday?

When I bought 30kg of sugar I thought it might end up lasting a couple of seasons, I'm not so sure now, that's 10kg gone into the hive so far!

Skep Making

First up thanks to Mike and Sue of beesnbeans for arranging this course.

OK, I'm knackered, I can't believe that making a skep can be so hard, I can't say that I must be getting old because Martin who ran the course had a few years on me! :-), he was very good, very calm and very knowledgeable.

It's amazing what you can do with the top of a plastic bottle and a piece of copper pipe!

Above is after about 3 hrs!!! OK don't give up the day job. Below is after 8.5hrs, definitely don't give up the day job, but quite relaxing and addictive.

Below is what you can do, will mine end up as a fruit bowl, get lost in the back of a cupboard or get finished?

Feeding Time

I'd put the first 3 pints of sugar and water feed, (1 pint to 1 kg), into the hive last weekend, but having checked a few evenings in the week the bees weren't consuming it anywhere near as quickly as I had been told they would, perhaps it was because I'd put the feeding tray in a super and it was a bit too high for the bees to access, or maybe the colony isn't up to full strength this season as it was a July nuc? I decided what I really needed was an eke, a shallow box the same depth as the feeder.

This morning I popped to the local timer merchant, wanted Cedar but had to settle for pine, I can always treat the wood later once the feeding is done, above is the temporay eke and 2 pints of feed.

Below is the hive before swapping the top super for the eke. Bees were pretty busy and still bringing in plenty of nectar and bright orange and yellow pollen, wonder where they are getting that from?

Below the new eke is in place and the feeder topped up, if you look closely you can see that it's not just the bees who like the food, it's full of drowned ants!

How do the bees get to the food? Under the centre rib is a raised section with a slot in the top, the bees come through the hole and then creep down the sides of the raised section to drink in the feed.

Why do we need to feed them? Well a strong colony needs between 35-40lbs of honey to survive the winter and having stolen their honey, they need to be force fed to replenish their stores. OK I didn't get any honey this year but just want to make sure they have enough to help them survive.

The hive all back together with the eke is place, my one mistake was to do this at about 11am when the bees were pretty active, as a result spent a lot of time trying to keep the bees out of
the feeder and sugar water! As it was it rained all afternoon so maybe I timed it about right?

Tommorrow I'm on a course making a skep.