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This is my first year attempting no treatment. I used mite away 2(formic acid) last fall and all 16 hives came through winter very strong. I have one vp queen which is excellent. I never find more...

Honeyshack, do you think the queen loss was caused by the formic acid? I was concerned that the bees might supercede the queen because I thought I read somewhere that the formic acid is supposed to...

anyone have bad results with mite away 2? Thanks!

Your mitefall will be scewed if you do it within (48 hours?) of fogging.

I grafted thursday evening. I didnt feed mine, but still got 32 of 42 grafts accepted. The chinese grafting tool made it easy. I put both cellbar frames at the window edge of an observation hive. I...

A nice tool, thanks for sharing. A couple suggestions: I think you should adjust the calender to "check for eggs" on the 16th day, and also possibly to requeen a little earlier if eggs are not...

If he's got bees that are varoa proof to a 2% loss rate, that are gentle and excellent producers, shouldnt he be selling queens!? Seems like he has an obligation to sell them for the benefit of the...

Seems like gentleness should have been the determining factor in queen selection. The only way to keep the bees off the basketball court is to keep the hive very small. I would suggest keeping the...

I wouldnt neccessarily go for italian or russian. You should do some research first. I would go with queens that have shown resistence to varoa and trachael mites by surviving without help. You can...

I have also noticed this slow down in brood rearing just prior to the main flow. Since the queen is slowing down anyway, I plan to remove all my queens 1 week prior to our main flow. I may give...

What is meant by 'Painting Brood?' I believe this is done with varoa. Thanks.

Have any bees shown resistence or tolerance to nosema? Can tolerance be selected for by requeening from untreated survivors? Thanks! Paul.

I think one useful observation that can be gathered from this conversation, that seems worth mentioning, is that it is allright to treat for mites when you find a colony having a bad time with varoa,...

Thats a little confusing. I should add that you dont kill any queen cells unless you removed the queen (4 days earlier )because no queen cells were yet constructed or laid in. If what I wrote is...

I havent tried this, but one possibility would be to overcrowd a robust colony you'd like to force into swarm cell construction by putting a packed solid honey super over the brood nest and making...

Has anyone used it yet? Where did you buy it?

Are there africanized bees in your area? What is your mite control plan? I would carefully consider the type of queens you want and then order package with queen from that supplier, regardless of...

The mites here are very bad. My bees dont seem to have any resistence. I keep mongrel Italians because they are gentle and I dont want to have to buy queens spring and fall to keep the best genes. ...

Indiana honey, when do you requeen with queen cell? Mid-july? Thanks! Paul. Dont mites build up again quickly when brood rearing resumes?

Looks like they could use some roof repair and a new facia board. How do you keep the new combs from falling apart when you remove them? How long had they been there? Nice pics! Thanks, Paul.

Great pic! Especially nice on the newly drawn comb. Nice orange queen. Italian? Where from?

Nice loading Job! How many full supers can you carry? How many hives can you carry at one time?

dont have shb here so I use the formula. I havent been consistent with it and I also fog with thymol so difficult to tell if its working. Dont seem to have a tracheal mite problem, so maybe its...

I would extract the frames and give em to strongest hives. you could heat the honey till its clear and feed to your nukes and to light colonys in the fall. If its fermented you will have to toss it.

In the spring(swarm season) its important to look at the bottom box because you may want to reverse hive bodies if the bottom is empty of brood, or open a plugged brood nest with empty frames. ...