In a message dated 96-10-15 13:23:24 EDT,
[log in to unmask] (Matthew Ter Molen) writes:
<< When revising my hives a week ago and pulling the apistan strips I
noticed that I had around a 1 or 2 frames of brood per hive but no
eggs. However, when I went back yesterday to check they had around 3
to 4 frames of eggs plus frames of capped brood. Now, we've had nice
weather recently and we haven't had a hard frost so there is still a
lot of aster and goldenrod in bloom and the bees were bringing in a
lot of pollen.
However, I noticed the correlation last year in that when the strips
were in place I saw brood production decrease and then, the minute the
strips have been pulled, I see egg laying dramatically increase.
Has anyone else experienced this? I don't think that it is weather
related, even though there is an obvious decrease in brood production
at this time of year because of the cold weather and coming winter.
Thanks. Matt Ter Molen >>
Hi Matt:
There is no question that brood rearing is related to pollen intake, so
this may be a factor. However, I did want to add another note.
When our state inspectors were first checking for varroa, several years
back, they insisted on placing two strips into our five-frame nucs, because
the directions said two strips per colony. We disagreed with that
interpretation, thinking it was ridiculous to use the same rate for a tiny
colony.
After three or four days, we saw dead brood in the area right around the
strips. It was not a massive loss, and perhaps a little could be accounted
by inability of bees to reach all the cells to care for the brood. But I
also felt that there was some death due to toxicity, within a couple inches
of the strips.
I did not notice a reduction in egg laying. It was spring, and these
young queens were "rarin' to go."
[log in to unmask] Dave Green, PO Box 1200, Hemingway, SC
29554 (Dave & Jan's Pollination Service, Pot o'Gold Honey Co.)
Practical Pollination Home Page Dave & Janice Green
http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html
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