4/28/18
Nosema treatment, fumigillian, is no longer available. Producer stopped making. No current solution. Need a mucriscope5or use extension office. This may cause the rise seen in recent absconding.
New news fungicides may bee a problem by making mitecides more toxic.
Blooming now:
Privet, some tupelo, high bush gallbery, black berry, black gum, tulip popular, dandelion, sparkleberry tree.
Not bringing in a lot of pollen.
Never stack weak bees on weak bees. A strong on a week may work.
Nosema treatment, fumigillian, is no longer available. Producer stopped making. No current solution. Need a mucriscope5or use extension office. This may cause the rise seen in recent absconding.
New news fungicides may bee a problem by making mitecides more toxic.
Blooming now:
Privet, some tupelo, high bush gallbery, black berry, black gum, tulip popular, dandelion, sparkleberry tree.
Not bringing in a lot of pollen.
Never stack weak bees on weak bees. A strong on a week may work.
4/28/18
Nosema treatment, fumigillian, is no longer available. Producer stopped making. No current solution. Need a mucriscope5or use extension office. This may cause the rise seen in recent absconding.
New news fungicides may bee a problem by making mitecides more toxic.
Blooming now:
Privet, some tupelo, high bush gallbery, black berry, black gum, tulip popular, dandelion, sparkleberry tree.
Not bringing in a lot of pollen.
Never stack weak bees on weak bees. A strong on a week may work.
If the queen doesn't get mated, she'll lay drones. Then, if you can request it, stack it. And split at a later date.
This time of year, not a lot of drones. Directly relayed to pollen availability.
Mix suger water and vanilla to spray when adding a nuc to queenless hive.
Think, if it is queenless you won't raise honey cuz you've lost population so spread resources if it's strong.
Tame a frame with nurse bees ans broid and shake out. Nurse bees are always accepted.
There's always a hive that can take a frame if bees.
Keeping them crowded keeps the happy.
Tony now uses single queen castle, not split.
Swarms like to go to the same trees/location. Strategy: place trap in that area. Swarm may be up to 10 lbs.
Swarms strategy, shake bees out of hives into a box of nurse bees, pull a frame each of nectar and eggs. Then I leave capped brood in old it keeps it strong but helps suppress swarm pressure. Put queen cell in the mix.
If they are building queen cells and not yet capped, the skinny queen will be hard to find.
If capped, they've swarmed, most likely. If you shake bees from old, into new, into a sheet or board, allowing them to walk into where the queen is helps them think they swarmed.
Requiring helps suppress swarms. New queen probably won't, 2-year old queen will most likely swarm.
The later in the year the harder it is to requeen. Now we are on the edge of the hard time-- we're at the start of the flow.
To help acceptance, use $7 push in cage over brood and honey, cover queen, after 4-5days she'll be accepted. Some times you'll have mother daughter queens in same hive as their scent is similar.
Always feed when introducing a new queen .
Don't poison your bees.
If there is spraying it needs to be done at night.
Don't drop an empty foundation in middle of brood nest, work it in slowly.
Don't stress hives by treating while queenless.
Don't give bees lots of room, keep them crowded year round
Honeycomb attracts pests so swap out broid comb over 3 year period.
Don't pull honey early. Let it get capped.
Treat hive during honey flow only with approved product to avoid contamination
A great queen this year may run out of sperm for next year. Raise queens off of her if her genetics are good, but be prepared to replace her next year.
To raise queens. You need a lot if nurse bees. Start with 5 hives or more.
Tony stopped using amitraz.
Oxalic acid works but is dangerous. Don't realty get resistant because it burns the legs off the mites. Tony uses full face respirator chase the vapor will settle out on your eyes
Oxalic acid in strips from Argentina study works good. Tonya had goid results. He was able to keep more count to 3%.
Formic acid is good within humidity and temp range, below 50% humidity and low temp.
Nosema treatment, fumigillian, is no longer available. Producer stopped making. No current solution. Need a mucriscope5or use extension office. This may cause the rise seen in recent absconding.
New news fungicides may bee a problem by making mitecides more toxic.
Blooming now:
Privet, some tupelo, high bush gallbery, black berry, black gum, tulip popular, dandelion, sparkleberry tree.
Not bringing in a lot of pollen.
Never stack weak bees on weak bees. A strong on a week may work.
If the queen doesn't get mated, she'll lay drones. Then, if you can request it, stack it. And split at a later date.
This time of year, not a lot of drones. Directly relayed to pollen availability.
Mix suger water and vanilla to spray when adding a nuc to queenless hive.
Think, if it is queenless you won't raise honey cuz you've lost population so spread resources if it's strong.
Tame a frame with nurse bees ans broid and shake out. Nurse bees are always accepted.
There's always a hive that can take a frame if bees.
Keeping them crowded keeps the happy.
Tony now uses single queen castle, not split.
Swarms like to go to the same trees/location. Strategy: place trap in that area. Swarm may be up to 10 lbs.
Swarms strategy, shake bees out of hives into a box of nurse bees, pull a frame each of nectar and eggs. Then I leave capped brood in old it keeps it strong but helps suppress swarm pressure. Put queen cell in the mix.
If they are building queen cells and not yet capped, the skinny queen will be hard to find.
If capped, they've swarmed, most likely. If you shake bees from old, into new, into a sheet or board, allowing them to walk into where the queen is helps them think they swarmed.
Requiring helps suppress swarms. New queen probably won't, 2-year old queen will most likely swarm.
The later in the year the harder it is to requeen. Now we are on the edge of the hard time-- we're at the start of the flow.
To help acceptance, use $7 push in cage over brood and honey, cover queen, after 4-5days she'll be accepted. Some times you'll have mother daughter queens in same hive as their scent is similar.
Always feed when introducing a new queen .
Don't poison your bees.
If there is spraying it needs to be done at night.
Don't drop an empty foundation in middle of brood nest, work it in slowly.
Don't stress hives by treating while queenless.
Don't give bees lots of room, keep them crowded year round
Honeycomb attracts pests so swap out broid comb over 3 year period.
Don't pull honey early. Let it get capped.
Treat hive during honey flow only with approved product to avoid contamination
A great queen this year may run out of sperm for next year. Raise queens off of her if her genetics are good, but be prepared to replace her next year.
To raise queens. You need a lot if nurse bees. Start with 5 hives or more.
Tony stopped using amitraz.
Oxalic acid works but is dangerous. Don't realty get resistant because it burns the legs off the mites. Tony uses full face respirator chase the vapor will settle out on your eyes
Oxalic acid in strips from Argentina study works good. Tonya had goid results. He was able to keep more count to 3%.
Formic acid is good within humidity and temp range, below 50% humidity and low temp.
