I am located in Southwest Missouri and this is my second year of
beekeeping.  I started this year with 3 hives in my backyard.  I now have
those three and two more in an outyard thanks to a split I made and a swarm
caught in a bait hive.  I have some observations on which I'd appreciate
comments.

Imirie shims:

I installed an Imirie shim on one hive between supers of drawn comb.  I
observed it for a week and never saw the bees using the entrance in the
shim.  At the end of a week I inspected and found the bees had filled the
space occupied by the shim with brace comb, so I removed the comb and the
shim. Not having an entrance above the excluder didn't seem to deter the
bees.  This hive produced 5 supers of honey plus two frames of cut comb
honey.

Beltsville screen inserts:

I built several of these and installed over the bottom boards when I
treated for mites in August.  This was the first time I used sticky boards
and these inserts are great for that.  I was stunned at the hundreds of
mites on the boards after the strips had been in for only a few hours.  I
also noted that small black ants were carrying off the dead mites.  I left
the insert on one hive after completing the apistan treatments to observe
mite fall with no treatment in the hive. (The insert is still on and I will
leave it on all winter but I have blocked off the opening in the back)
 There would be a few mites on the board from time to time, but it was
difficult to evaluate because of the actions of the ants.  Furthermore, I
assume that there is some degree of natural mite mortality, therefore some
of the mites under the screen would have died anyway whether or not the
screen was in place.  The question is: how many mites below the screen were
healthy mites that just lost their grip and died because they could not get
back on a host, and how many died due to natural mortality?

What to do with wet supers:

Again this year, after extracting, I put the wet supers back on a couple of
strong hives, having read that the bees will clean them and carry the honey
below, leaving nice dry supers to store with PDB.  I tried this last year
and it did not work.  This time, in addition to putting them on top of the
inner covers, I put empty hive bodies on the inner covers first.  It didn't
matter.  Once again the bees cleaned off the frames and stored the honey in
a very random manner throughout the supers.  I had to run virtually every
frame back through the extractor, which yielded about a gallon of
honey/nectar from nine supers.   What am I doing wrong here?  It would be
easier to store them wet but I understand that: a) wet supers should not be
stored with PDB because the remaining honey would pick up the odor/taste of
PDB, and b) storing supers wet will promote granulation of next year's
honey crop.  Are both of these true?

Menthol treatment:

I install menthol packs in August when the ambient temperature here in
Southwest Missouri is frequently in the upper 90's.  My experience the last
two years is that the bees completely isolate the menthol pack from the
hive with propolis before the menthol has a chance to sublimate.  I am not
sure how much of a treatment the bees are getting because there is always
menthol remaining when I remove the packs.  Any suggestions?

Entrance reducers:

Last winter I installed 3/8" hardware cloth across the entrances instead of
entrance reducers.  This seemed to work well and I would prefer to use it
on all hives instead of reducers.  The problem is that 3/8" hardware cloth
must not be manufactured these days.  I have checked all over Missouri and
can not find it, only 1/4" and 1/2".  Anyone have a source for it?

Rod Rupert
Springfield, Missouri
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