Like Allen, last year I lost my bees thinking, as he did, that the protocol
I had set up would get my bees through the winter. One made it through, a
Mike Palmer queen, but only a handful of bees and eventually died. Allen
forged on, but I decided on a different tack.

Before I was diagnosed with cancer, my bees were poster children for health
and production. That came about by following the advice of my two mentors,
George Imire and Tony Jadczak. But cancer shifted my attention rather
dramatically and my bees suffered for it. I became a BEEHAVER (remember
Georges all caps?). The bees were never again the same, so when they went
down for good, I decided to start afresh, but not until next year and with
Carniolans, my bee of choice for this area.

Since all beekeeping is local, my local problem was twofold. First, I was
not killing off all Varroa, but keeping them going in their up and down
cycle. So who knows what kind of super varroa I was selecting for. Second,
even if I killed off all the Varroa, I have a neighbor who is a natural
beekeeper and who is beeless every spring, but, in the meantime, is a nice
place where my bees visited as the colonies were not too strong. So I
passed my Varroa to the other colony which meant that Varroa were always in
the neighborhood.

A clean break was needed.

So, for this year, I cleaned and sterilized equipment; stripped down my
plastic foundations; and threw out a lot of old equipment and made new
wooden ware. As far as bees for my bi-monthly sings, I put out some honey
and borrowed them from my beekeeping neighbor.

So, if all happens as it has over the past several years, my neighbor will
lose their bees, Varroa will be gone in the neighborhood, and we both will
start fairly fresh, I realize that I will still see Varroa both from
packages brought in by my neighbor and probably on my Carni nuc, but, at
least the numbers will be manageable and allow a nice low baseline. Plus,
my equipment will be clean and will not add to the bees problems.

In essence, I am starting beekeeping as if it was for the first time, but a
little smarter and with a lot more equipment.

Also, I will start with only one colony and split it later this spring. I
will be back to raising my own bees, with a lot of contamination from next
door. My long term plan will be to bring in some Carni queens when my
neighbor gives up, and get back to selecting for the area and pests. In the
meantime I have Formic acid.

If you got this far, thanks for your patience.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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