Part Eight: Lessons in Mites and Moisture

November started out in typical northeastern fall fashion, with daily temperatures wildly fluctuating from day to day. One day it was about 60 degrees and our bees were still bringing in pollen, and the next, freezing rain was falling and not a bee was to be found. After a busy season of starting with one hive then adopting another, and all the trials and tribulations that went with that, we figured we were out of the water. Boy, were we wrong!

Wrapped up, insulated, and ready to rock.

Is our adopted hive a goner?

We made the beginners' (and maybe even long-time veterans') mistake of getting cozy and thinking we were all set and prepped for winter. On our last inspections in early October, all was well. The hives were in their winter setups, weighed in at nearly 130 lb., and mite counts were regulated. All it took was a few weeks for things to do a 180 degree turn for our adopted hive, Big Girl.

Early in November, we did a 72-hour mite drop count and saw that our original hive, Kha-bee-si, had about a 2 mite-per-day drop rate, but Big Girl had so many mites it was nearly impossible to count them. Panic ensued. Luckily, I work at the land of beekeeping and was able to get my hands on a ProVap to do an oxalic acid vaporization treatment. Tim and I cleaned off both mite monitoring boards, replaced them beneath the hives, and then worked together to get both hives treated. It was intriguing to learn the ProVap treatment technique. Both hives had mites drop to the bottom board, but Big Girl had a huge number drop.

The day after the treatment, I checked on the hives to make sure we hadn't killed the bees in addition to the mites. Kha-bee-si had what looked like the normal number of dead bees near her entrance, but Big Girl's death toll seemed much, much higher. I was a nervous wreck! However, Big Girl was a larger colony to begin with, so I was assured this was normal when looking at two different sized colonies.

After another 72-hour mite drop, Big Girl still had too many mites (dropping at about 6-per-day rate), so we treated again using an oxalic acid vaporization, but this time used a Varrox wand. Same story: TONS of mites dropped and TONS of bees were dead at her entrance the next day.

"Do you even (oxalic) vape, bro?" Equipment for an oxalic acid vaporization with a Varrox wand.

Then came a couple days of November weather respite, during which the bees in the Betterbee yards were making cleansing flights, so I went home on lunch to check on our hives. Kha-bee-si was flying strong with many bees at her entrance. Big Girl… not so much. There were only a few bees going in and out of the entrance, making us even more nervous about her survival in the long run.

One night after work, I trekked through nearly a foot of snow out to the bee yard and pressed my ear against Kha-bee-si (using the technique in this article), then tapped lightly on the side of the box. I could hear a very audible, louder hum right after tapping the box. I then did the same with Big Girl and heard an increased hum, but it was not as loud as Kha-bee-si's. She's alive! The cluster may be smaller, but she's alive!

Lessons in moisture

Add this to the list of things we messed up on in our first year: We were too worried about the possibility of chilling the bees or destroying the cluster. We waited too long to remove the feeders. In early November when we did our first oxalic treatment, we removed robber screens and replaced them with entrance reducers for the winter. As I was out in the apiary and in tidying up mode, I figured I would remove the hive top feeders, but when I opened up Big Girl, part of the cluster was clinging to the bottom of the feeder, so I placed it back on. I was nervous that by removing the feeder, I would hurt the colony more than I would help it.

Two weeks later, after freezing rain and gross, wintery weather, we finally had a temperature break and I made a point to remove the feeders. However, the extra room and the moisture in the feeders may have already chilled some of the bees. By trying not to chill and kill, I inadvertently may have done just that. The good news was that, when I removed the feeders, both hives had bees inside (although Big Girl had many more dead than Kha-bee-si did). Again, I focused on not paralyzing or killing any bees (have I forgotten that honey bees are hardy creatures?). We then topped off each hive with a notch-down inner cover, a piece of foam insulation, the outer cover, a political sign as a porch roof, and a cinder block to hold it all in place. Then we wrapped each hive in a vinyl hive wrap, focusing on covering the cracks between the boxes.

We're crossing our fingers that both hives can stay strong and survive what is already playing out to be a long winter.

Your Betterbee-ginner Beekeeper,
Quinn