There are varying opinions on the web regarding varroa, the levels you should treat at, when you should treat, and what with - this seems to be a common theme in beekeeping that there is no 'right' answer, so you just have to read a few sources, and make the best of it. - Hopefully the bees are pretty resilient to action and inaction. Anyway, the rates of mite drop are well above the levels where Defra recommend treatement, so I think it's probably not wrong to treat them now, and Apiguard is recommended for treatment in August.
This is my helper / photographer for this evening:-
So - what did we see in the hive today. - Well, last time on 12th August I added the super full of foundation. The bees have drawn out much of this comb, and filled it - I guess this is where the syrup has been going, but at least I know they have something to get them through the winter. There were a couple of frames at the edges which were not filled, so I moved these in one space. There was no sign of brood in the super. - Here you can see a frame from the super and how the bees have started capping off the cells at the top - Not sure where they've been putting all the pollen they seem to be bringing in.
Having had a look through the super, we put it to one side, and had a look at the brood box. - What I wanted to be sure of was that there was still evidence that the queen was well and laying OK. We actually saw her a few frames in, and saw some young pearly white grubs as they should be at the bottom of the cells - and capped brood. Couldn't see eggs, but I think that's just the light / my eyes, since there must have been eggs at some point for there to be young grubs. - Having seen the new grubs, and the queen I was happy for now. Nothing either that looked like proper queen cells to me, so all is good with the world. One of the frames at one side of the hive wasn't completely drawn out, and the one next to it only partly, so maybe I was a bit premature in putting on the super but maybe I can move it in a bit if still not drawn next time I look.
Finally, we put back the super, and added the Apiguard on top of that. - It's like a sort of minty smelling gel that the bees will eat, and clean out of the hive and spread it around hopefully removing a large proportion of the varroa mites in the process. - I will monitor varroa count again when treatment is complete in a month or so. - It's a two part treatment - leave one can of gel for 2 weeks then replace with another for (I think) 4 weeks. (http://www.vita-europe.com/products/apiguard/)
We put the varroa floor back in to partially seal the bottom of the hive and allow the vapours from the gel to be more active throughout the hive, then put an empty super on top of the stores super, crown board on top of that, and filled a feeder on top of the crown board.
Job's a good un! The bees were really very well behaved and didn't seem at all fazed by being opened. - I had warned the neighbours again, but they didn't bother them either. - One bee was getting a little fussy toward the end, banging into my veil, but only a couple of times - nothing nasty.
Looking forward to checking progress next week.
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