Went in to both hives today to take out the Amitraz strips. Didn't spend any time going through the hives because I wanted to leave them undisturbed. This is not the time of year to have a queen get damaged during inspectionm The north hive is doing well and you can see they are bringing in pollen. I should do a mite check, but probably will wait till the Spring.
It has been about 2 weeks since we put in the Amitraz strips. Every morning I've been driving by to see how the hives look. The north hive, my hive, has had a lot of flight activity. The south hive, Tracy's old hive, has had a little bit of activity.
I put entrance reducers on the front of both hives about 10 days ago when we had our first dip into the high 30s at night. They're not completely closed down just partially.
Both boxes were quiet, seemed Queen right although I did not see a queen in either one.
Did see good pollen stores and even some capped honey that is from the sugar water I've been feeding them. I think they've got enough stores.
I believe Amitraz causes the queen to slow down laying although I did see some milky brood so I know she's been active recently.
Both boxes have shallow supers on top but none of the frames in them are built out so there's no real concern for wax moths.
The population in the north Hive is much higher than the population in the South Hive. That's probably because it was on its way out before we treated for beetles and mites.
Hopefully, we were able to save it and it will make it through the winter.
I've been feeding both an organic 2:1 sugar mixture, which has a lot of cane syrup residue in it so any honey they're storing is brown. They'll eat it out after the end of December.
Since I took both hives down and looked at most every frame I feel that we're in good shape to go into winter.
Daylight Savings Time begins tomorrow and life is good.
