Crashing Hives!

[peggjam]

How many 42's are we upto here? Or is everyone 42. You should've stuck to the plan...........

800 hives is alot of hives, any problems with robbing?

[Keith Jarrett]

Peggjam wrote,
800 hives is alot of hives, any problems with robbing

ah...... did I leave out that I have about 3 or 4 yards like that.

I don't start stock piling till about mid oct with mine, then the out -of-state bees start showing up.

Robbing, it's not bad, we try not to feed syrup when they're that size. I feed pollen sub , starting at six a.m. and try to get out of the yard by two.

Ah heck.... it's only couple thousand hives per man, whats the big deal.
Did I mention this is a young man's job. Am, I old enough to cry old.

[Dave W]

Just got finish with my first of three treatments yesterday.
Knocking down between 50-100 mites per hive of the 1700 hives. Want to be clean by middle of aug so will be ready for a aggressive pollen feeding campaige by the end of aug. But, may have to go back if needed in sept or oct if needed.

"Knocking down between 50-100 mites per hive" does not sound like a statement about pre-treatment count. "Knocking down" implies to me a "kill" made by the treatment. If your pre-treatment (natural) counts were between 50 and 100, it sounds to me you needed to treat.

[Jim Fischer]

> Bah. It's not even the middle of July.
> Keep your pants on Dave, wait till mid-August...

I agree with George.
Some people have yet to even do a single drop-test,
so how would they know what the counts are?

[Keith Jarrett]

Dave wrote,
>If your pre-treatment (natural) counts were between 50 and 100, it sounds to me you needed to treat

Dave, I dont bother with natural drop. What I do is slip a sticky board in, put a 8 ga load of mitcide in, come back in the morning, and count. Been doing this way for ten plus years.Never, have I ever had a wipe out due to mites. But, then it's not good to say NEVER say NEVER.

But also have a time line to go by, that is, I dont like treating for mite while I am feeding pollen. Another old timer did that and crossed the two a little bit and you could imiage what happen.

All I know is, what has worked for me for years, no one has ever heard me complain about my bees looking poor.

I just do what works and has a good long track record of working, how does the saying go " if it aint broke don't fix it".

[Aspera]

My theory is that every hive that dies from varroa or tracheal mites this summer is now being attributed to CCD. I've already heard several small hobbiests, keeping only a few hives claming that their hive "collapsed from a mystery plague". The only mystery in these cases is why the people never looked for varroa or tracheal mites. It's almost as though people like CCD because it absolves them of their bad keeping practices ("they collapsed...its not my fault!")

[Keith Jarrett]

Aspera,

Well said

[tony350i]

Hello Keith,

The pics off your bees in January look very impressive,
How do you go about swarm control?

Regards Tony

[Keith Jarrett]

Tony wrote,
How do you go about swarm control?

Hi there Tony,

We do alot of shaking, alot. From march-- end of April.

Here's a pic of a 1000 pound load of bulk bees in march for a large Queen outfit to restock there mating nucs.

http://s148.photobucket.com/albums/s...t=100_1502.jpg

These cages I made my self, I wanted something with a lot of air flow and light weight and could hold three deep frames inside.

Tony, with all the bees in Calif at that time (out-of-staters) many are looking to fill up thier boxes before they head back for home.
Keith

[peggjam]

That's alot o'bees. How well do they ship?

[naturebee]

Where are the reports of hives crashing from Varroa?

Usually, by this time each year, we have lots of posts that reflect serious infestations.

Hmmmm

There ya go Dave!

Ask and you shall receive. The 2007 ‘hive crashing’ thread is a hit, beekeepers counting mites, mites abound in beekeepers hives across the USA, the sky is falling once again!

Best Wishes,

Joe Waggle,

…who has ’never’ done a mite count, and finding that what has worked for thousands of years; ‘breed from your best performers’, still works today, and remarkably well in place of counting mites..

(edit was to put another smiley face in there)

[Keith Jarrett]

>How well do they ship?

Jim, they ship ok this way, most are within 200 mile radius. We put couple frames of honey in so they will keep for a day or two.

Here's a closer pick. Smoke--up box in foreground and bulk cages in background.

http://s148.photobucket.com/albums/s...t=100_0805.jpg

[dickm]

Hi guys,
I have to tell someone. I just did a 3 day natural mite drop on 12 hives and could not find 1 mite. This was a stickboard test. I've been hearing similar stories this year.

dickm

[peggjam]

I've seen a few on the bees, but nothing major. Going to have the hives inspected on Monday, so we shall see......

[Beemeister]

Dick,

To what do you attribute your success?

[dickm]

>>"Why success?"<<<

I started over after losing all my bees last winter. I think the packages were free of mites. I don't know what the package guy was using. I'm keeping my pants on until Aug. It suddenly occured to me that I shouldn't bring in any splits from another yard, something I was contemplating.

dickm

[Dave W]

dickm . . .

Who's the "package guy"?

[dickm]

The bees actually came from Wilbanks, in Ga.They are great bees. I'll average 2 supers from packages in the same year.

dickm

[Keith Jarrett]

Many keepers here on the left Coast make up increase this way.

Take a bulk cage of bees ( 35 pounds) , treat with a tab, let sit over night. Then in the morning dump four pounds in the hive with a new Queen.

I know this is old news to some, but there might be some rookies that haven't try this method yet.

It's a quick way to get a FRESH start. Even if they dont have 25 years of beekeeping.

[peggjam]

What's a tab?