I'm in Boulder, CO, mostly suburban, lots of backyard and hobby
beekeepers. I have 3 hive (plus a TBH) in my backyard, mentor about 50
other beekeepers from Ft. Collins to Denver and manage a small commercial
operation of 50-100 hives for someone else. Of the hives over which I
have direct control, if I get and keep varroa down to a dull roar, I don't
lose more than 10% over winter, last winter none. However, that's getting
harder to do.
This was a tough year for bees in this area because of drought and
heat. Serious robbing started early. Beginning beekeepers are my summer
bread and butter, but many of their hives crash starting late summer. What
I'm pretty sure is happening is the mite bomb phenomenon, actually the mite
*carpet* bomb phenomenon. If I get hives treated in early August and get
mite levels down to threshold (<7), they spike again in 4-6 weeks, like up
to the 30's and 40's. I treat again and they spike again. Meanwhile
there's an odd honey flow when there's no forage around. So I think my
hives are cleaning out the weakened hive in the neighborhood, bringing back
some honey (good) and picking up a lot of varroa (bad) directly and
possibly through refugee drifters from the weak hives. I do alcohol washes
now monthly from July through November. One of the honey apiaries is near
a big crossroads in the county and I can see apiaries on the 3 other
corners. They dwindled in numbers steadily starting in early August from
10 or so to 2 or so. Our mites climbed accordingly. We lost 1/3 of that
apiary.
The typical death scene I'm called to is from August on and consists of
a softball sized bunch of workers and a queen, huddled over some very
scattered capped brood. Sometimes heads have been chewed off pupae. There
aren't many DWV bees. I suspect they've already died. There's no sign of
brood disease. The beekeeper reports that the hive was strong all summer
and made a honey crop. It's those booming hives that are most at risk for
varroa. There's usually a substantial amount of honey, though it may be
getting robbed, giving the appearance of lots of hive activity. If things
were really bad, the hive may abscond. Then there will be odd looking
queen cells pulled by foragers returning to the empty hive. So, sometimes
when people say, "My bees just left!" they really did, but mostly they
crashed. There are varroa on the bottom board. When I use a safety pin to
pull bees of capped cells, there are varroa and/or guanine deposits. There
may be more guanine deposits, but until the hive is in bad shape, the
workers clean those out.
So this year I'm teaching classes specifically on varroa. (I'm
incorporating Randy's mangy dog analogy - thanks.) They'll be free to
anyone in a two mile foraging radius of my hives. I'll try to get them to
all the local bee clubs near me. I now tell all my mentorees to try to
talk to their neighbors about keeping their mite levels down. I'll see how
that goes. I think most beginning beekeepers really want to "help the
bees." But faced with a dead hive, it's so much easier, convenient,
comfortable to blame someone (Monsanto . . .) or something (contrails . . .
) else.
Cheers,
Kristina Williams
Boulder, CO
PS If anyone has ideas on how to reach out to people in a state where
hives aren't registered, please share.
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