Honeybees – 3rd April 2016

The bees are flying in all 3 hives! I might be heading for a 100% over-wintering success rate (this would be a first for me). I give the Bee Cosy quite a lot of credit for this, as this was the main thing I did differently this winter.

The two hives in the allotment had 100s of bees flying in and out and the one in the farmer’s field that I had all but written off, had a few bees going in and out.

All hives had pollen going in as you can see in the photos.

I  could see a few bees with deformed wing virus wondering around on the grass by the “near hive” in the allotment. The treatment for this is to reduce the varroa that carries the virus. I am also pretty sure I saw a bee with k-wing (which is due to tracheal mites). The treatment for this is to requeen as the queen might be producing bees that are susceptible.

Plan is to use MAQs on all hives when it arrives in the post.  It is now 10C plus and the Bee Cosies should help the effectiveness.  Need to research and consider shook swarm to reduce DWV.  Not planning on re-queeening yet for the k-wing, until I see more evidence of it when I do an inspection.

Question to readers: how does one reduce DWV? It’s associated with varroa.  Reducing varroa helps … but does a shook swarm help further or make no difference?

You can find my hive records here.

More videos below (including one of bee with deformed wing virus):