Lloyd Spear wrote:
>3.  Go for the Goldenrod flow with no August treatment and treat with 
whatever in October.  There are fewer and fewer of these as the result is 
numerous hive collaspes in September and October and high winter losses. 
High winter losses may be due to the inability of the hive to produce a full
 cycle of varroa free bees for the winter cluster.>

>We have some areas of NYS where the Goldenrod flow is the only flow with a
surplus, but the size of the surplus can be substantial.  Some members of
Bee-L are in these areas.  I would love to hear from them what has and has
not been successful.

* This is the exactly situation in the Southern Tompkins County. I have seen
this over and over again. The hives might do fabulous during the goldenrod
flow, but by the time it was over they'd be crawling with mites and already
crashing. The boss wouldn't even do samples in August. "Nothing you can do
about it anyway," he'd say. Well, I don't have any bees at present, but I
think the solution is to treat with formic in August. I know beekeepers that
do it. If you wait until October, it is definitely too late. Unfortunately,
the Japanese Knotweed comes on in late August so that narrows the windo even
more. Probably 3 weeks starting Aug 1 would do it. I also thought of
splitting the hives at that point and treating the splits with formic.

pb

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