Counting Mites!

To begin with, for the record, I added four more gallons of syrup to the hives on Saturday - two for Georgia and two for Arlington. They had both been dry for about four days, but in the interest of fair-sharing the sugar cane harvest in the western hemisphere, I've decided they each get two gallons per week and no more. They've actually kept ahead of my ability to provide fresh, undrawn supers for them anyway and the four supers currently on the hives have been drawn and filled for some time. Adding that to what they have stashed in the brood chambers, they should be in good shape. I'll pick up the feeding pace again in September. I do need to add more pollen patty though, as I'm sure they've finished that off.

Yesterday, July 15th, I slid a grease-covered board under the screened bottom boards of the hives for the purpose of collecting varroa mites that drop from inside. Today, I pulled the boards and counted. On Arlington, I counted a grand total of three after going over the board with an eye-loop three times. Georgia had six. They are pretty small - about the size of a lower case 'o' but after seeing a few, they became readily visible. The difficulty comes in determining that the little critter you see is a mite and not some other hapless insect who got stuck. There were many of these. Of course I had several ants -no surprise there - a couple of moths (wax moths?) and a variety of other things. Add to this the usual debris that rains down out of the hive such as wax flakes, dirt, propolis chunks, bee poop and God knows what else. They decorated the board pretty good in just 24 hours.

By putting the boards under the hives I effectively closed off a major source of ventilation for the bees. This was evident when I checked the hives an hour or so later and found thousands of bees chillin' on the front porch (ie. landing board). Twenty or thirty of them were vigorously fanning the hive entrance to get some air conditioning going. I felt bad for them, but it is for their own good in the long run. When I pulled the boards today, I felt like I was giving them a gift. Now the hives can get back to their normal 95 degrees or so and the girls can sleep at night without sweating all over the comb.

I believe that based on my count, the bees are in pretty good shape for the moment. I will do the count again in a week and see if the mite population has grown. They are supposed to peak in August, so I assume my count will rise. If it does, I'll have to take to the countermeasures that have been suggested. One of these is to sift powdered sugar down through the hives and onto the bees. This causes the mites to fall off the bees and it is hoped that the bees themselves will dislodge more when they groom each other after the sugar bath. The direction nowadays is to avoid using chemical solutions if at all possible. Stay tuned!

The girls and I have enjoyed a peaceful coexistance of late and so...

the sting count remains at 13!