Glen here. SoCal, San Pedro to be specific. Beautiful weather here. Bees are flying and foraging like mad. Lots of nectar. Less pollen. But plenty coming in. 3 booming hives. ( always interesting that many are done for the season and I am building.)
I use all mediums. Foundationless. The hive in question is 3 mediums. Plenty of resources. Yesterday during inspection there was a small pile of bees out front. So my radar kicked in to keep my eyes open for .... something.
I could see plenty of jittery incoherent bees on many frames. Plenty of capped brood, larva. Spotted the queen. She looked normal.
This morning was course 3 of OAV with a plan to finish the course by the winter Solstice.
2 hives were business as usual. The last one had 1000’s of dead or dying bees out front and crawling out of the hive.
I opened the top. Still lots of bees in there. But lots of erratic behavior. I closed it up and OAV anyways. Thinking if they are weak from pesticides. Reducing mites will only help. The mite drop in this hive has been very low for the last 2 treatments.
I guess it’s wait and see now ? I won’t be able to inspect until next Saturday. I reduced the entrance to about 1”. I hesitate to put a robber screen on as the dead bees will pile up.
Lots of honey and pollen. So they won’t starve. Temps are mild all week.
Anything else I am not thinking of?
I use all mediums. Foundationless. The hive in question is 3 mediums. Plenty of resources. Yesterday during inspection there was a small pile of bees out front. So my radar kicked in to keep my eyes open for .... something.
I could see plenty of jittery incoherent bees on many frames. Plenty of capped brood, larva. Spotted the queen. She looked normal.
This morning was course 3 of OAV with a plan to finish the course by the winter Solstice.
2 hives were business as usual. The last one had 1000’s of dead or dying bees out front and crawling out of the hive.
I opened the top. Still lots of bees in there. But lots of erratic behavior. I closed it up and OAV anyways. Thinking if they are weak from pesticides. Reducing mites will only help. The mite drop in this hive has been very low for the last 2 treatments.
I guess it’s wait and see now ? I won’t be able to inspect until next Saturday. I reduced the entrance to about 1”. I hesitate to put a robber screen on as the dead bees will pile up.
Lots of honey and pollen. So they won’t starve. Temps are mild all week.
Anything else I am not thinking of?