Going into Autumn

Stores for the winter!

As the days shorten the bees are getting ready for the winter and to help them this is the time of year that we have a targeted offensive against the varroa mite. As the bees slow down for winter and form a cluster the varroa mite just keeps going, so if they go into winter with a big population they can overwhelm the bees and they won't make it through the winter. This year we have used 2 forms of control- Apiguard on the bees on the Cordwood site and ApiLife Var on the hive in the garden- nothing really scientific about it as the hives and sites are so different. The bees in the garden have not had a very big drop as the treatment went on and the concern must be is the treatment doing it's job or were there not that many varroa? This hive was a very small nucleus and has become active and very busy. It has produced about 15lbs of honey and seems to be collecting enough stores to sustain the bees over the winter without any help from us.
The bees on the Cordwood site have produced about 35lbs of honey from 2 of the hives- the third hive wasn't very big and we didn't take any honey from them this year. The drop of Varroa has tailed off over the treatment but there were still a few on the floor when we took off the tray of Apiguard- something to keep a watch on over the next few months and maybe consider further treatment during the winter.
These three hives have a moderate amount of stores but just to be sure over the next week or so we will put on some 2:1 syrup to build them up for the winter, although with the recent record temperatures I wonder what the reaction will be!!

ApiGaurd tray on top of the frames.