Hi all, 

Thanks to Allen for posting his fall predicament in re: to high mite levels and 
the resulting problems. I know Allen approaches beekeeping with a keen 
scientific intellect which is obvious in his postings. But we all get caught 
with our pants down eventually. 


Allen writes:
<<I did some mite checks and found loads around 10% and some higher.  At this 
point, the brood was reduced and the varroa loads often soar at this point 
of time.  I had failed to anticipate.   My bad.>>

His post could be another chapter in "True confessions of Beekeepers". Keeping 
the mite load down is like walking across a swamp without gettting some water in 
your boots. It's easy to get complacent or misread the "tea leaves". 


We at Sleeping Bear found some higher loads than we anticipated this fall. We 
treat constantly before and after the honey making season. Looking back, my crew 
neglected to roll every yard (complacent after seeing some yards with few mites 
and big clusters) and we used soft controls, ie. thymol and formic as the honey 
was pulled. If every yard was rolled, we would have found some with 15+ mites in 
our ether rolls and would have gone directly to a more stringent program. 


We did go and treat everything again as we fed the hives. We did lose some bees, 
but not bad. I'm anxious about virus collapse and skinny bees with shorter life 
spans. We did "punt" and sent many more to Florida to go on an intense pollen 
sub and lower bric feeding program to stimulate the queens to lay even in 
advance of solstice. We will try to increase the body fat of our bees to start 
making royal jelly.(yes, I was listening, Randy!). We will provide the best 
conditions to get our hives rolling again and maybe even send some of those to 
Cal.

We do have 10 loads ready in the north that were selected for Cal. and so far we 
don't see any big drops on the bottoms. It's still "walking on eggshells" time 
before we ship.  


Now repeat the mantra with me....."roll, roll, roll..Ooooommmm"

 Kirk Jones

Sleeping Bear Farms   beekeepers making honey...
Benzie Playboys           cajun and zydeco band........
Beekeeping Journal Blog   thoughts on beekeeping
Facebookfor Kirk
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