dansar

Today’s inspection of hives at Waihi we’re good. Rewarewa flowers and a frame of tasty Rewarewa Honey 😋 🍯 2 weeks of settled weather and the bees have decided it’s time to make honey while the sun shines!

That point had been discussed in this thread previously. Not new information. it may have even been in the summary document that @CraBee put together. Good discussion aye? We have just found another gem in the method👍😁

@glynn how are your hives and Oxalic treatments going using ova board?

Phil has made himself available for Q&A and was even at the mini conference put on by the Thames bee club (and possibly a southern NI one as well?). I’ve had losses that I attribute to nutritional issues rather that the method of delivery. Hives that have had correct/adequate nutrition are the bane of my life as they are on swarm control.

I’ve never seen bees on it. “Bush mans toilet paper”. Usually found on the edge of Bush.

Manuka flowering well at the Hamilton Gardens. We saw 1 lonely bee on these (ornamental) flowers.

Trial a couple of apiaries half synthetic and half Oxalic/glycerin gib (or cardboard) strips?

Could’ve taken awesome photos of hives wall to wall with bees treated twice with gib strips (April, September). Also a nuc that I thought was a dead out 3 weeks ago that in fact had a queen and about 100 bees, no nectar, pollen small circle of brood and eggs that were being cannibalised. This Nuc? got donated bees, brood and food supplies. But Alas my fingers were covered in propolis freshly softened by the days and weekends heat so no pics. Swam cells in a few hives so frantically trying to stop them from persisting on their destructive path. Hoping a real nectar supply happens soon as bees have well and truly emptied the pantry.

My experience is if it’s a heavy mite load the Oxalic won’t help. But having said that, since the Synthetic treatments aren’t helping either it may be a option to carry on as you were by supporting the varroa hive with regular addition of healthy brood and nurse bees while the oxalic/gly strips are in. I haven’t had the chance to try it this way as I started with these strips last autumn so hives were reducing brood. It might just work👍

More rubber waste😜🤣

I imagine some would would be doing “the long way round” trips with the Parapara’s being damaged. Maybe someone has brought them closer to home because of the extra travel involved?

@JohnF has some info here

Lots of beekeepers know what it is. Probably a lot of hive deaths due to this go undiagnosed as well.

I picked a couple of nice strong hives to bring home on the weekend. These will be be cell raising hives. Amazingly strong hives that overwintered with Oxalic/Glycerine strips in. There wasn’t a sign of any varroa in the opened drone brood that was between the two boxes. 12 frames of amazing clean brood in each hive and not a sign of any DWV. Makes the sore back at the end of a long day of working hives worth it. 🐝

Covered a fair bit of ground today. Putaruru to far side of Hamilton then out to Mangatautari to work hives. Light flow coming in and swarm cells starting to appear. Hives are building up nicely for honey flow in December/January. Then off to Tokoroa apiaries where it is a mixed bag of results. Old queen hives are behind where they should be but the queens from last season are going gangbusters and I needed to put a second and even a third FD box on to the hives. Moving some hives in to Avocado pollination in a couple of days as well. Busy week 🐝