A nice thing about being a bee farmer is sitting next to the woodstove on a day like this and reading a bee magazine.
Yesterday was a gorgeous day, as forecast, and as Fred had posted on the blog to give everyone that was intending to do an oxalic acid vapor treatment a heads up. My deep cycle battery was fully charged, but there was still a cord of oak firewood that needed to be stacked in the barn, out of the elements. With the short term forecast for rain, cold, and snow, I chose the firewood so it wouldn't become a frozen mound of ice. I'm glad I did. It would be soaked, again, today. So now I have to wait for another opportunity to treat, or skip it all together. I'm not especially concerned because the colonies all had (3) mite treatments through the season; (2) FormicPro and (1) Apiguard, with the Apiguard treatment ending the first week in October. But I don't know if any Varroa bombs landed in any of the hives after that. An oxalic acid vapor treatment could help if they did. There's always a concern of injuring or killing a queen when treating a colony, but Randy Oliver says oxalic acid does not harm queens. Good to know, it would be sad to injure or kill a queen going into winter as there would be no chance for the colony to survive. The last time I checked for queenrightness was in September. I decided to not break any propolis seals after that so the bees would be snug this winter. I checked my hives for activity this weekend and am going into winter with 12 colonies. It would be great to see them all alive in April, but that's impractical thinking. If I come through with a 25% loss, or less, I'll be happy. While checking the hives yesterday I found one entrance reducer with fresh gnaw marks and put a mouse guard in front of it. I noticed that a couple of other reducers had larger than usual openings (made that way) and I'll be going back to put guards in front them as well. Of course there's the risk of trapping a pregnant mouse inside the hive, so I'll be waiting for a warm day with the hope that any mice will be out foraging. The only time I ever found mice in a hive was in a dead out, but I've heard that they will occupy live hives as well. My next steps will be putting on the winter covers and making sugar disks. Members use different techniques to supply the bees with emergency sugar, and our next meeting will be a good time to discuss this again. Anyone that has a recipe/technique for winter feeding, please bring what you have to share. While checking the hives I could hear that most of my colonies were in the bottom deep, where they should be at this point, but a couple were in the upper deep. I track their location in the hive throughout winter by putting my ear against the boxes to locate the buzz, and when they get near the top of the hive I add sugar disks, which is basically hard candy with essential oils added. I cool the candy in paper plates which give them a disc (short for discus) shape. There's a medium super of honey above most of the upper deeps, so they're fine for now. This is the time of year to work on crafts using hive products. It's not just honey that the bees produce. Beeswax is valuable for candles, cosmetics, soaps, wood polish, and other things. (Stradivarius used propolis in his famous varnishes, so if you're a violin maker....). Anyone that has bee-based or bee-inspired craft items that can be brought to the library to show others, it will be appreciated. The winter gets long and it's nice to have a craft to work on. I pour 100% pure beeswax candles and will bring some molds and other things along. Those that bake with honey......you know what to do. A major point of discussion at our November meeting will be whether or not to offer beginning beekeeping classes to the general public. Jack Rademacher is looking into a number of things regarding this, and the membership needs to decide if we will support this endeavor. If so, members will need to form a committee and make a plan. Beekeeping classes are often held in January and February so there's not much time to plan, prepare and advertise. Laurie has been in contact with an apitherapist and she is looking at having a presentation on apitherapy at our January meeting. This may be an Event that we want to invite other clubs to. Hopefully Laurie will have a firm commitment by the meeting date and we will proceed from there. Next meeting: November 17 at the Caestecker Library in Green Lake. 9:30 a.m. Gerard
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ECWBA NewsletterSince 2009 Archives
March 2019
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