The Apiary Buzz: Monitoring Varroa and More.

New beekeeper learns how to monitor varroa.

Better Weather.

I’m writing on another gloriously sunny day on the 114th day of the most peculiar year in our lifetimes. Up here in the Scottish Highlands, we have plenty of space to walk and social distance though I haven’t been near the shops for 5 weeks. I say hello to neighbours from a distance, and wave to one 60 metres away when we put out our rubbish bins etc. Connie (8) the wee bee apprentice is not allowed to come beekeeping of course but she cycles her little pink bicycle over to give me eggs every week. She leaves them on the path and we exchange a quick bit of news about the bees both hoping that she can come back again soon to the apiary. As soon as the next honey is harvested she will have some. We discuss marking her queen and Connie wants her to be pink.

After over a week of good weather, the season has taken off. Swallows arrived here from Africa on 11th, a week earlier than last year, and they are now familiar sights swooping low over the garden and twittering like mice in the sky. The little plum tree on the back lawn put on a great blossom show and was pollinated by bumble bees mostly, though I saw a few honey bees there in the warm evenings. The plum blossom lasted a week then the cherry took centre stage with apple blossom about to fully open and steal the show. The wild cherry or gean, Prunus avium, is frothy white in the woods, and the lime green flowers of the sycamore trees are busy with pollinators.

The OSR (oil seed rape) is flowering at least 2 weeks earlier than usual and there are several dazzlingly yellow fields nearby. This happens some years but early flowering often coincides with icy cold weather and a poor nectar flow. So, this year the bees are taking advantage. As well as OSR nectar they are bringing in dandelion nectar which also in full bloom and flowering in profusion nearby.

Apiary Management.

The good news is I have a new live-in apprentice beekeeper called Kimball who is very keen to learn the craft and has been reading the books when I thought he was playing computer games. This makes beekeeping more interesting this season and keeps me on my toes teaching good habits. Kimball has worked as a flying instructor and brings good ideas to my apiary. We discuss what we will do at the hive in detail before we open up to inspect. Afterwards, we debrief and both say what went well and what could be changed/improved. This is helping to improve Kimball’s skills and he quickly learns the correct techniques like using the J hive tool to remove the first frame, and the curved end tool as a lever to break propolis seal on the next frames.

We moved bees onto standard brood frames from a 12×14″ brood box on 5th when the weather was good. I’d been hoping that they had already moved up into the standard box but, although the queen had been laying there, there were 3 12×14″ frames below containing brood. So, I did a shook swarm and sacrificed brood from the bottom box. I froze the frames then fed the larvae to the hungry garden blue tits. It was a partial shook swarm because the bees were shaken onto the standard brood frames that came with the colony at the end of summer when I was given a rescue package by a friend when my colony was queenless.

This colony is very strong so I made the decision to get them off the old standard frames too and do a Bailey Comb Change to give them fresh foundation. This might seem like rather a lot for them to cope with but it is working well. After week of feeding a syrup using 1kg white granulated sugar to 1litre water, which is useful for bees drawing comb, 3 new frames had been drawn out and it was time for the queen to go upstairs. I placed her there and put a queen excluder between the 2 brood boxes. On 10th May, 24 days later when all brood, including drone, will have emerged the bottom brood box will be removed. Luckily the weather has been so warm lately that this system of changing comb is working well and the colony is just starting to fill a super with nectar.

Another Colony Drawing Foundation.

This colony has also been given a new brood box and fed syrup and shows results 2 weeks later.

Sugar Roll Test.

I sublimated all the colonies with oxalic acid crystals in December around the solstice. Although I do use varroa monitoring boards, I like the reassurance of sampling 300 bees, and the option to treat before the season really takes off if the levels are over 2% varroa in the sample. I sample before the season, after the main harvest in June, then at the end of summer.

Shaking frame from brood nest taking care that the queen is not on it!

We want to collect 300 young nurses bees from the brood box so we shake a frame into the bucket and allow the older bees to fly off before swirling round the bucket to collect the young bees in my half-cup measuring tool.

The correct number are shaken into the jar with mesh lid and the other bees are shaken back into the hive.
Adding 2 tablespoons icing sugar to the bees.
Note instructions to hand!
The bees have been rolled round in the icing sugar so that they get hot and bothered which causes the varroa to come out from their hiding places.

We wait for 2 minutes for the varroa to climb out before shaking them out of the mesh-topped jar over 90 seconds.

Shaking for 90 seconds.
Spraying icing sugar with water to reveal 2 varroa in 300 bee sample.

Results.

Only one colony had varroa in the sample and as the level was not over 2% (over 7 varroa) no treatment is needed. I would have used formic acid (Mite Away Quick Strips) at this time as it is the only product to penetrate the brood cells.

Randy Oliver’s website is very useful (www.scientificbeekeeping.com) He is a biologist and beekeeper who contributes to varroa research in a big way. You can see how he does an alcohol wash which is similar to a sugar roll test but it kills the sample so I prefer the latter.

Marking Connie’s Queen.

I always mark queens at the beginning of the season so that it will be easy for her to be replaced if she dies or is killed by the bees after marking. It is also much easier to find her in spring before the colony builds up. I used to use a queen cage but find picking her up quicker and perhaps less stressful for her.

Going behind the queen and picking her up by both front wings.
Offering the tip of my left index finger for her to settle on.
Ideally hold 3 legs on one side but 2 will secure her. Holding by one leg may result in her rotating round and losing it.

When the paint has dried, we put her back watching to see that the bees are not going to ball her.

Kimball’s Useful Tip.

If you want to learn a procedure like an artificial swarm, or manipulation that you need to know well for an exam, set up a couple of empty hives and practise. Write out every step that you need to make to do this properly, and practise every day till you can do it automatically.

Swarm Prevention.

I haven’t seen any flying drones yet though I saw brood 2 weeks ago. So, I am not expecting swarming for a couple of weeks at least so will be leaving the colonies alone now to collect nectar till the beginning of May. Then regular inspections for swarm preparation will commence. Meanwhile, I have given the bees plenty space and the strongest colonies have 2 shallow supers in place.

Next week.

Look out for an interesting guest blog about beekeeping on the inner Hebridean Islay.

4 thoughts on “The Apiary Buzz: Monitoring Varroa and More.”

  1. Excellent guidance on how to pick up and handle safely a queen in order to mark her with a dot of paint. Your words and photos explain this delicate procedure very clearly. Thank you.

    1. Thank you for commenting, Tom. Having a good photographer around really helps when it comes to explaining such procedures. I suppose that YouTube videos are really the way forward but more time consuming to put together.

  2. Thanks Ann, Kimball and Linton for great demonstrations in word and picture of the sugar roll test. You also answered my question about the thin sugar syrup for drawing out combs. Despite the 1/1 mix, my bees still store some of the Syrup and are running out of space. I’m wondering if the bees would use the storage to draw out the frame with foundation that I put in yesterday so I can put a super (with queenexcluder) above to give the queen more space to lay? I don’t want to feed the bees more than necessary.

    1. Hello, Anna Maria. If you are only giving one new frame of foundation for the bees to draw out, I would leave them to get on with it as there should be nectar coming in now. It would be a different matter if you were giving a box of foundation as they would do best with a syrup feed for that, unless you had a nectar flow such as OSR coming in.

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