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I don't do varroa mite treatments. My Russian-lineage bees do tend to shut down during a dearth. So there is a natural break in the brood cycle which helps control varroa. I left plenty of honey...

Here are the pictures. The hive itself is the "bait". The original model I saw had a little "door" built into the frame so you could open it and dump the beetles out. Obviously an 8 mesh screened...

Someone at our club made what looks like a good trap. I have not tried it. What it amounts to is a double screened inner cover, made of regular mesh wire window screen. The frame is maybe 1/2 inch...

I always hoped that the lizards eat hive beetles and larvae!

13 of 13 alive so far. Last treatment was thymol in the fall of 2009, so I can't really consider them long-term treatment free yet. All the queens were raised here in NW OK, with the exception of...

>>Hive maintenance would be done indoors- bees that leave the hive during maintenance are now in an enclosed room, possibly in the dark- trouble.<<

Dirtslinger, I was thinking about a bee escape. ...

Has anyone ever put a hive in a shed, with a tube or something to the outside?

[QUOTE=Kavius;815388]Fair enough, I couldn't figure out the domestic use for it. I don't know what the dosage is for humans, or what the concentration of this product is, but I imagine picking up a...

Doing very well. The queen I got from you is going great. I haven't been in them too much. I might take a look this weekend.

My colonies are in their third no-treatment year having gone...

Agree 100%! I am in my 4th year, now 10 hives. I have made a bunch of mistakes. What I would recommend to a beginner is to buy "Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping" and "The Practical Beekeeper"...

Are you sure it isn't hive beetles? You won't always see the larvae until there are quite a few. All the videos are "worst case scenario". Put it in the freezer and see if larvae crawl out.

I made one of these. I like it.

Here's a question: If I were to put one of these on each hive to anticipate robbing, and they are all built the same, would that defeat the purpose of confusing...

If they are acting queenright, they probably are. I have learned that lesson more than once. Here is the recent saga:

I had a hive that was trying to make a queen since april. I should have...

I have 2 whiskey barrels with firewood in them, and a kiddie pool with some chunks of sandstone. The container doesn't seem to matter, but they love to land on the the string algae on the logs. I...

Omie, I wish you were my neighbor!

I use half whiskey barrels with a plastic liner. I put firewood logs in them. I added more logs as they sunk to the bottom. Bees used them like crazy. I thought I was doing great till the...

Valleyman, I have some Russians.

I went through one hive yesterday. The queen was from Velbert Williams 2 years ago. Well, they possibly superseded by now but I don't know because there are so...

northeast okla: 1 or 2 frames with a patch of brood in all 8 hives, Feb 19.

Another local beekeeper same on Feb 20. His hives had bigger patches of brood than mine, but he feeds more.

I noticed the same thing, inspecting my eight.

There is always one outlier in the bunch though.
Except for the one, (Russians brooding in the bottom box, with open SBB) the rest were...

I would think you would have pretty cold winters. Your bees will need to draw comb and put back enough stores for winter. In my opinion you would be better off letting them build up strong and go...

I am happy with my Russians (Velbert Williams queens).

I started beekeeping in 2008 with 2 hives Italians and one hive of undetermined parentage. One hive of Italians built up great, lots of...

Seymore, I saw one of those scopes in a gadget catalog for about a hundred dollars. It was for retrieving things out of tight spaces ;) so of course I thought of beehves.

My neighbors feed the deer :eek: and then have Tru-Green ChemLawn* come out to kill the dandelions and clover. So far, knock on wood, I have had no complaints about my bees in their pool.

We...

Take what I say for what it's worth, coming from a third year beekeeper.

Last year I had a strong hive. Their 48 hour drop last summer was about 200 mites. They went into winter with a deep and...

I raised 3 queens this spring from one of Velbert's russians. I put my mating nuc 10-15 miles from here so who knows what drones they mated with. I have 2 of them built up to 2 full deeps. They...