Hi All,

I thought that I'd post a report of what I'm seeing in my own colonies,
should anyone be interested.

We had a few warm flight days this week, which allowed me to open my
colonies for an oxalic dribble before they brood up.  I took the opportunity
to take samples of dead and dying bees from the fronts of colonies, from the
surviving clusters of dwindling colonies, and from the bottom boards of
deadouts.

I ran most of my operation with minimal mite treatments again this year,
experimenting with breeding stock, management, different treatments and
timing, etc (if I had any business sense, I would have just used off-label
miticides).  We monitored mite levels fairly closely, on a hive by hive
basis.  Many colonies thrived (largely dependent upon location), some lagged
(apparently due to Nosema ceranae), and some made honey and crashed come
winter (mainly due to varroa/virus).  Some deadouts I have no explanation
for.  No sign of anything that I'd call CCD.

Genetics are apparently a big factor, with huge colony-to-colony variations
in mite levels, honey production, and nosema levels.  I have several
promising breeder candidates.

There was an unusual amount of Deformed Wing Virus, even when mite levels
were low.  I have no explanation.

Nosema counts were high in my California yards (dry summer), and low in out
of state yards (irrigated alfalfa).  Also high in varroa-infested colonies.
The high nosema colonies are currently consolidated into one yard for a
field trial of treatments, and are mostly going downhill.

The dead bee samples mostly had negligible nosema spores, so I'm not about
to blame nosema for the deadout problems.  However, a sample of forager bees
actively robbing a deadout had a high nosema spore count.

In general, the yards that got better nutrition, either natural or
supplemented, fared better.  No surprise that!

One striking observation was that the colonies that were most severely mite
infested in August, that I then treated with any treatment (I experimented
with various application methods of formic pad, thymol gel, oxalic dribbles,
and powdered sugar), generally recovered and are looking good, regardless of
treatment used (powdered sugar being less successful at bringing down high
mite counts).  On the other hand, many colonies that had very low mite
levels in August, and weren't treated, died.

Most of the above observations are not surprising in any way.  There were
few problems that could not be attributed to nutrition, varroa, or nosema.
The take home lessons for me were to be proactive with nutrition, monitor
for nosema early in the season, and to treat all colonies for varroa in mid
August whether I think they need it or not.  The timing of the treatment
appeared to be more important than the actual treatment used.

Randy Oliver--still plodding along the learning curve

******************************************************
* Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at:          *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm  *
******************************************************