Showing posts with label varroa mites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label varroa mites. Show all posts

Sunday 12 July 2015

Pupa Overboard

During yesterday's midday check of the Apiary I noticed a couple of bees on the ground just off to the side of Hive 2. They were struggling with something which looked unusually white.
On closer inspection it turned out to be a honeybee pupa.

The Mysterious Ejected Pupa
It was the only one that I could see and it just seemed a bit odd.
I was a bit perplexed.
The only way the pupa could have got there is by being physically dragged out of its cell by the workers and ejected off the edge of the landing board.
I'm not sure why though.

I had a quick trawl through the internet forums and the strongest suggestion seems to be that the colony is exhibiting 'hygienic qualities' which, apparently, is a good quality for them to exhibit.
It means that they are monitoring the brood for signs of things being not quite right, chewing open any dodgy cells and discarding the imperfect incumbents.
So the discarded pupa may imply that they've detected mites or it may imply that there's wax worm present in the hive.
However, on my regular checks there's been no sign of varroa whatsoever and there doesn't seem to be evidence of waxmoth either.
In fact, the colony seems exceedingly healthy and robust.

In addition, the pupa was quite big which implies that it was possibly a drone pupa. The ejection could be part of a general drone ejection due to a summer dearth of nectar flow. It's possible, but I must admit, I've not noticed much of a dearth recently, quite the opposite, in fact.

It's been 3 days since my last inspection so I suppose it could have been a pupa that I perhaps had inadvertently damaged. This is also a possibility but not, by any means, a certainty.

Consequently, I'm still not particularly sure what's going on.
It may be nothing serious but it'd be nice to know all the same.

It looks like it's time for some detective work down at the Apiary.




Wednesday 15 May 2013

A Bit of Beekeepery at Our School Garden Open Day

Saturday the 11th of May


It was Garden Open Day today at LandofSpike's kids' Primary School just along the road from Spike Towers.

This annual event showcases the work of the School Garden Team, a small and dedicated group of parents and staff who work with the children throughout the gardening year to help them understand how things grow and where our food comes from.


Presumably, it also helps the kids understand the very best ways to get totally covered in dirt.


The day was a bit windy and not particularly warm, but at least it wasn't raining. 
So, unperturbed and with a few heavy things on top of the light things to stop them from blowing away, it was time to open the gates to the public and let everyone have a look at what the gardeners had been up to.

As ever, there was plenty of brilliant stuff to see and do.
The day was subtly bee-themed, with a make-a-bee craft stall and a bee-themed colouring-in table. 
Kids could also plant some seeds, paint their own plant pot or decorate a pebble.


You could make one of these at the craft stall

Hungry visitors could sample a variety of tasty homemade breads, rosemary scones, apple cake and fantastic soups made from produce grown in the garden.
Intrepid visitors could take a tour round the site to view the results of all the great work carried out by the children and adult helpers.



In addition to all this excellence, LandofSpike had been enlisted to spread the beekeepery word and was delighted to set up shop under the apple blossom tree on the garden's northern borders, right next to the face painting stall.
.
His aim was to try and help demystify the arcane world of the beekeeper.
He couldn't really bring a big bag of bees along with him, so he brought a big bag of beekeeper kit along instead. 
And talked a lot.


In a hugely enjoyable couple of hours (for him at least) we discussed frames, foundation, Langstroth, beespace, brood boxes, supers, queen excluders, hive tools, smokers, colony collapse disorder, neonicotinoids, fondant, syrup and the value of autumn feeding.
That's the autumn feeding without which the beesofspike would not have survived the winter.



A varroa tray with 4 days worth of debris provided a sample of mites to look at under a microscope. 


Horrible

And once identified, people could return to sift through the tray to find the little blighters in situ, along with plenty of wax flakes, some dropped pollen, a few wings, legs, a sting and, happily, no evidence of wax moth.


Varroa tray detectives could identify, wax flakes, pollen & mites


There was lots of wild comb on display and very quickly people found they could identify brood cells and larvae, capped brood, drone cells, pollen cells and uncapped and capped honey. There were even a few new workers emerging from their cells to marvel at.


A BeesofSpike worker emerging from its cell


Despite all this learning and worthiness, LandofSpike suspects that by far the most popular bee-related exhibit on his stall was the large chunk of honey-filled burr comb that he sliced off the side of a particularly heavy frame of capped honey.



Yes, we know the varroa are really interesting but when can we have a taste of this?

Garden Guru Anita whisked it away to the produce stall where it was very swiftly consumed, along with the delicious homemade breads, by an enthusiastic public. 

It's heartening to know that the bees that made that honey had, more than likely, visited this very garden and the gardens of most of those attending the Open Day, to collect nectar and pollen.
It was indeed the most local of local honey. 

And so with people still picking beeswax from between their teeth, a very successful Open Day came to a close.



It would seem that anything that can help make beekeeping more accessible is a step in the right direction.
What goes on underneath that veil, behind that screen of smoke and inside those enigmatic buzzing boxes shouldn't be seen as mysterious at all.
Hopefully today, and days like it, help to lift the veil just a tiny bit.


LandofSpike's only regrets were that he didn't get to demonstrate his smoker lighting technique, which was judged a Health & Safety hazard by Mrs LandofSpike, and that there wasn't time for Stevie to model her extremely cute beekeeper suit.




Sunday 7 October 2012

A Long Overdue Update from the BeesofSpike Apiary


The BeesofSpike are back online.

LandofSpike would like to offer his sincere apologies for his absence from the blogosphere over the last few weeks and for the lack of news from the BeesofSpike. 

This isn't due to a lack of action in the Apiary nor is it due to any Bee-related disasters. In fact, the BeesofSpike are now in the best of health, the colony has expanded excellently and the bees are currently storing up plenty of provisions in readiness for the winter.

LandofSpike's work in the Apiary has continued unabated but he has unfortunately been unable to devote any time to the blog due mainly to the demands of the BeeKeeperJuniors' summer holidays and a sizeable workload in the pesky WorldofReality.

Fortunately he has taken meticulous BeeNotes and will, in time, be able to transcribe all the action to the Land of Bees blog. 
He has also, whenever possible, photographed the important elements of his inspections, his day-to-day observations and any other bee-related activity. 


It was good to see new comb appearing on the new frames

In addition, he and the ever present BKJ1, have recorded every inspection with the trusty CamcorderofSpike.

BKJ1, inspecting


So, with the excuses out of the way, LandofSpike can now reveal that, since our last post, the bees have been doing just fine.

There she is... the important looking one in the middle

Once the good weather kicked in on July 20th and once the mite situation was under control the colony started to thrive. 
The bees eventually moved into top gear for the end of the summer.

The new comb and stores of honey have been appearing at an ever increasing pace and the new Super has filled extremely quickly.
LandofSpike has decided to leave his Bees with the Super in place for the winter. The focus for this year is to get the colony through the winter and leaving them with a big box of full and heavy frames of capped honey seems to be an obvious choice.



Honey production up and running

They are currently harvesting the final pollen of the year.
Close to the Apiary, the grounds of Spike Towers are home to large swathes of ivy so the workers are stocking up while they can.

I counted them all out and I counted them all back




The BeesofSpike have developed a seasonal taste for syrup and they are consequently taking down industrial amounts of 2:1 sugar solution from the top feeder.
Their concerted effort at draining it dry started in the first week of September and they've been at it ever since.


BeesofSpike workers taking syrup from the feeder

LandofSpike has today returned from the local supermarket with his sixth 5 kilo pack of cane sugar of the Autumn. 
He has made up yet another batch of syrup and is just waiting for it to cool before refilling the feeder in the morning.
Details of their syrup consumption will be dealt with in a separate post and will also include the methodology for preparing the feed.


A familiar sight in the LandofSpike kitchens over the past month




The varroa count is down to about 1 per day, which means that the Apiguard has done its job perfectly. The All Clear has been sounded and the colony should be able to overwinter without fear of mite attack.
There is consequently now no sign of DWV (deformed wing virus) which, whilst the varroa had hold, had afflicted some BeesofSpike workers.


A week's worth of Varroa in mid September. All hail Apiguard



The Drones have all now been booted out. 
This took place around the end of August and the start of September.
Watching workers escorting drones to the edge of the landing board then encouraging them, nightclub bouncer style, to take off into the blue, was fascinating. 
You could almost see the workers dusting off their hands as they swaggered back to the hive, job done.


No way back for the Drones



LandofSpike's smoker technique has also improved.
From a shaky, hit and miss start, he has developed a sure fire, works-every-time method. There will shortly be a smoker-dedicated post revealing his methods to a waiting world.


Foolproof smoker lighting technique soon to be revealed!


Right, that's all for now.
It's been a rather sketchy, and not particularly cohesive, précis of the recent activity in the Apiary but hopefully it gets us up to speed on the current situation.
There is an awful lot more BeesofSpike info to upload in the near future so LandofSpike is going to try and sort it into bite-size chunks.
The next post will be along very shortly.




Sunday 8 July 2012

The Honeymoon's Over


LandofSpike's first seven days of beekeepery have not been the best of times for his lovely new Buckfast bees.

This post was meant to recount the transfer of his colony from the travel nuc to the main BeesofSpike hive.
The transfer was totally successful but unforeseen events mean that the report must wait a bit longer.

I find myself instead documenting a week of problems for the BeesofSpike. 




Problem Number 1: Appalling Weather for Bees


The weather has been atrocious over the last week.
Yesterday was the worst of the lot, it chucked it down all day. 
Just like today. 
It's still raining now, as I type.
In fact, it has tipped it down every day for the whole week. 
It was even raining when the BBC Weather Report was claiming that it was sunny.
And the forecast for next week looks just as bad.



And all the while that it's raining my workers are unable to forage.
This is bad news for a small colony of bees that are already into July and have got limited time to get themselves strong enough to survive the winter.
The bees need every bit of good weather they can get.
Although even in the rain we can see them trying their best.







In the meantime I've been leaving the varroa board in place.
The varroa board is the sliding removable tray at the very bottom of the hive that catches everything that would otherwise fall to the ground.
In this way I can monitor what's going on inside the hive by analysing what drops out of the hive.

And after a particularly heavy rainstorm i found... 




Problem Number 2: Rain Incursion


There was water on the varroa board.
That shouldn't be there.

Drat
Surely the hive wasn't leaking from above. 
It wasn't.
Therefore it could only be one of two things.
Or both of them.
a) the hive entrance is quite open at the front and it's possible rain could get in that way.
b) the tray protrudes from the back of the hive by approximately 3cm so rain can fall directly onto the rear of it.

So, to protect the back, I put a length of 2x1 across the width of the hive stand, just above the tray, to act as a little roof.
For the front, I put a couple of tiles under the back feet of the stand to tilt the hive forwards a bit. 
I now realise that setting it up meticulously spirit-level horizontal was a bit of a mistake.
Hopefully the slope will encourage sitting water to not drain into the hive.

On further advice from Beeguru1 I'm going to tilt it forward a bit more tomorrow. 
As much as 15* is fine so the bees will have to get used to being on a bit of a slope, although hopefully a slope is better than a puddle.



On further inspection of their varroa board, i noticed that along with some encouraging pollen and wax debris, a couple of legs, two wings, an antenna and other assorted detritus, that there seemed to be more varroa activity than i was expecting.





Problem Number 3: Varroa Mites


When varroa mites drop to the bottom of the hive they fall through the cunning wire mesh screen and get trapped on the oily surface of the varroa board.

Not nice
Yesterday, across the whole board, I counted approximately 15 mites.
I cleaned and reinserted the board and today, 24 hrs later, there were about 17 new ones.

And magnified, using the LandofSpike makeshift optical device. Really not nice


In addition, this morning, I found a bee on the landing board, struggling to walk and staggering in circles.
It had stunted wings and a varroa mite onboard its back. 

A BeesofSpike worker, fatally damaged, varroa mite on wing

Two ominous mite counts and that poor sad bee infested with that grisly little beast pointed to only one conclusion.
I consulted Beeguru1 and he confirmed that it looked like the colony had a varroa infestation and that we needed to get it treated double-quick.

It's therefore time to get some Apiguard into the hive.
I've got some on order but I need it now. That means a trip across town to the local(ish) Bee Supplies Shop on Monday morning so the fightback against varroa can start as soon as possible.



And so the honeymoon period's over rather sooner than I expected.
My poor bees most certainly arrived at the BeesofSpike Apiary with varroa already on board.
But hopefully, this is where their luck starts to change.
Seeing just that one horribly damaged and distressed bee really underlined for me the consequences of getting it wrong. I've now got a chance to put it right.


Every crisis can become an opportunity, a crisitunity, as Homer Simpson once said.
The more things that go wrong, the more I learn and the better and more capable a beekeeper I become.
Which would imply that after a first week of appalling weather, water incursion and a varroa infestation, if it continues at this rate, I'll soon be the most experienced and battle-hardened beekeeper in the country.