I am realy happy to hear that! No treatment at all?? How do you manage?
Well l read about this imunisation program some are performing. I am all in. But for now, with 2 hives l have, natural selection is too hard of a game.
But it is the one and only way to get rid of the mites for ever (globaly).
Yes l have a mesh (you advised this when l was building the hive). I will have the tray made this week.
Internet is full of info, so many treatments from smoke, oil, heat, chemical, acid, essential oil, eaven garlic, l sort of got lost
Kristijan,
Sorry if you missed the note that I donât have hives any more, It was too much for me to keep going, and I gave the two hives to a beekeeper friend who has many. That was more than a few years ago. They were healthy and growing too fast for me to keep up. I live in a good area for bees. I rescued a swarm from a tree at work a few years ago, I put them in a nice wood hive but they were rebellious (It was a late season swarm) and kept on swarming until the hive was so weak, it was robbed out. At that point I said, maybe next year! Still waiting⌠Yes there are many treatments on the internet. That article talks about Formic acid perhaps being hard on the queen, and the Oxalic acid being applied with a vaporizer once a week for three weeks. What kind of vaporizer they used was not described. Sorry I donât have a better answer.
Here is another article I just read through. Looks like well-done research.
Vaporizing oxalic acid works great. Proven very effective. I donât believe it is hard on the bees. I have used it a lot. Powdered sugar is ok when you have brood and donât want to use oxalic.
But Oxalic acid is great in fall and early spring when you donât have brood.
I made a vaporizer at home with a diesel engine glow plug. Instructions can be found on youtube.
I donât use any pesticides, but trying to deal with varroa mites without oxalic acid is way too tedious for me. It works fast and safe. Just donât breathe it yourself.
I am not a bee expert but have been around a hive or two.
Some bees people keep that come from southern European types tend to be a little sneaky and steal from other weaker hives in raids if they can ( pressure to do this comes from not enough flowers ).
The bees from hotter climates are often a bit more aggressive.
These are the bees the commercial keepers use because they are very good for pollinating farmers fields up here.
Darker colour bees you see are often from German Polish ect another north eastern strains. ( where is east ??? in retrospect)
Tolerant of higher latitudes and colder climate.
Some people buy queens specially breed for being being easy to handle. ( or for traits like resistance to parasites )
This is a smart option.
If you buy a queen from a domesticated stock of bee you can expect they will behave a certain way.
If you introduce this queen to a hive that excepts it they next generation of bees will behave like the queen.
Russian bees where you have trouble with parasites, but not highly productive bees
We have those in my part of Canada domesticated used for honey production.
They are good tough bees and resist parasites that are causing a lot of trouble for folks with the Europeans types of bee.
Wild bees also make honey
But like feral bees if you harvest their honey you kill their colonies and you are going to get stung.
Once they go wild bees become more aggressive without people to tend to them and select out the undesirable traits.
You can not predict what wild bees will do.
They have been breeding wild with what ever types of bees have been successful in the area around you.
but this does not mean they will be easy to deal with, they might be mean bees!
I have a derelict shed on my property I should take down but last few years I have had a colony of bumble bees set up inside.
Bumble bees are under threat and all wild bees need our help.
These are not at all like domesticated bees.
The bees inside behave more individually even though they have a queen.
Each worker can become a queen if she decides to strike off on her own.
They make fantastic honey, but not very much of it and you will kill the colony if you try and take it.
I have tried a few times to make a sort of hive and see if I can convince them to move in.
They never do, I guess they do not like the idea of being in a box or any sort of hive that is exposed.
Walls they like and low down under floorsâŚ
Bumble bees are easy to piss off!!!
But I enjoy watching them work around my home.
Individually at work they are interesting to watch.
They have apple trees, and wild flowers to keep them busy.
In Slovenia we have our own breed, its a small dark gray bee called the âgray Krainerâ or something similar in translation (search Kranjska sivka). It is the only breed we are alowed to raise on our teritory. This way the purity of the breed is secured and since the breed is wery well known and documented you can expect exactly how every hive will be like. Makes beekeeping easyer.
I always wanted a bumblebee nest. I love those litle flying bears as you sayd not easy althugh l saw a video of a Slovenian beekeeper that rescued a nest and has it in a litle box.
I red somewhere bumblebee colonies are priced up to 300$ for polinating greenhouses comercialy!
You are right, it looks like one of my 2 hives was robed scilently. I united them both so now l have a real strong colony for next seson. Cant wait to see them with polen buds again
I have observed that bumblebees will make nests in sheltered places. Years ago I saw some nesting in straw used as insulation sandwiched in OSB. More recently I observed bumblebees nesting in sheltered fiberglass insulation. So maybe that is the best kind of habitat to increase their numbers.
In my old computer I have some honey wines I used to make.
Off the top of my head I remember one that used 2 litres of fresh blue berries blanched ( not cooked by boiling water or you make jelly ) and I think 1 kg of honey mixed to 25 litres of boiled water.
This made a nice dry light fruit wine thanks to the honeyâŚ
Well it seems beekeeping started for real here. Its early but the girls already have lots of brood! And lots of polen stores. Butyfull
I stumbled on this video few days ago. A Serbian beekeeper ingeneer
Crazy. Throws anything l ever imagined of beekeeping on its head.
Its a lot of info to translate but lf anyone is interasted, l will do it.
In short, he experimented with those fully or partialy open hives last two years. He reports bees have no problems handleing temps under -12c for long periods of time, with record being -22c. He reports bees use a not a lot more honey and queens start laying earlyer thain in closed hives.
Its a experiment to see how the elements effect bees and their survival. He shows exessive hive insulation can do more harm thain good, since it can prevent moisture to evaporate.
I admit that moisture is a problem for hives grown in cold regions like mine
but I doubt that a colony of bees will survive a northern Canadian winter without protection from the cold
I am amazed by that video and will watch it again! I wonder how he gets the bees to start building a hive in such an unprotected space. I would think the scouts would reject it unless he fills the hive with comb previously drawn out in a ânormalâ hive.
This hive has no frames and no fundation. Just fixed bars on top with a bead of wax. This is to achive several goals:
alow bees to build long deep uninterrupted comb wich both alow beter winter survival and beter bee comunication.
alow bees to gradualy build spaller and smaller cells wich make smaller bees that hach sooner thain varoa does.
boost the temperature to a point arroa doesent like
esentialy this hive is closest to bees natural habitat, hollow tree.
The hive has 2 âbee boxesâ (only one for now) wich are never interrupted. Idealy always full of honey on top. On top of the bars a honey super is installed in time of nectar flow, all that may be harvested.
What l did different thain the original design is make the walls out of 2 inch boards so 2" thick and install a door on te back side.
I installed a artifcial swarm and today l checked them, 8 combs built nearly to one half the box, caped brood seen on the edges. Looking good!
Edit: l checked, l lnstalled the swarm 24.6.2019 so thats 23 days ago.
Iâm just a complete amateur, but this spring I bought 2 Australian nucleus colonies. I split the stronger one, ending up with 3 nucs. Although the bees arrived April 21, it was hardly spring here, zero flowers or even trees budding for pollen. So they had a hard start, first having to raise their own comb on wax coated plastic foundation. I followed recommendations that uniform foundation reduces drone production, and no doubt helps the bees get started. Plus, in standard Langstroth frames, they should last a lifetime of extraction and handling.
Before nectar flow really got going, the hives were consuming 2kg sugar made into a 50% syrup daily.
After their stay in town, they went up north 240km to their bee yard. Bears are almost as common as the deer, a 6 strand high tension fence is not optional. Also good to keep skunks out, apparently they like to eat bees in the night. A spike board in front of hives will also stop that.
They are doing well in their location, the strongest hive has 4 supers for brood, and now a queen excluder and 5th for honey production. My land was suffering under a severe drought since the end of June, but the weather patterns have shifted, itâs starting to rain, so nectar will flow, the bees will be in their glory. By chance a neighbour planted canola, so apart from the prairie and woodland flowers they will have ample supplies across the road.
I made alll my own gear, frames from scrap lumber, turns out bees are a lot of work to get set upâŚ
Yes there are many treatments on the internet. That article talks about Formic acid perhaps being hard on the queen, and the Oxalic acid being applied with a vaporizer once a week for three weeks. What kind of vaporizer they used was not described. Sorry I donât have a better answer.
as you sayd not easy althugh l saw a video of a Slovenian beekeeper that rescued a nest and has it in a litle box.
