🐝💗Our Backyard Beekeeping Journey!💗🐝

[drstratton]

We purchased a Mite-e-vape oxalic acid vaporizer to treat our bees. It's highly recommended, by members of our club. It's corded, we have power near our Apiary.

https://www.mite-e-vape.com/

 

[drstratton]

August 19th, 2025

Got home last night. Dale went out to check the bees this morning. He said they are bringing in lots of pollen, then a guard bee chased him off... So, they are feeling protective of their stores.
We will definitely need to gear up before I give them their fresh sugar syrup.
I'll report back how it goes.

We also received our OA vaporizer. I'm thinking we might treat tonight. I need to see if our respirators have the correct filter.
Our schedule is going to be every 3 days (72hrs) for 28 days. The vapor completely dissipates in 72hrs and the 28 days allows time for all of the drones to emerge.

 

[drstratton]

We fed the bees and didn't note any aggressive behavior.

The buckwheat is in full bloom. We figure it's about 160 acres.

 

[drstratton]

AUGUST 20TH, 2025

Good morning all and happy Wednesday!

Waxing foundations for a new honey super. I don't expect this to be drawn and filled. But, we are hoping for more drawn comb for next season.

I've probably said this before, but I've learned that it's best to wax the foundations before popping them into the frames. It also allows me to get wax all of the way to the edge. If you wax after it's in the frame it can warp. I warm a block of wax and use it like a crayon.

 

[drstratton]

I think I'm going to try an experiment. The prewaxed frames always have a smooth look to them. We forgot a deep frame and left it in the sun. It was halfway under something. When I found it the half that was exposed had that same smooth look. First I'm going to try the heat gun on a low setting to see if I can achieve that. If that doesn't work, I will set them in the sun. I will do 4 like that and leave the other 4 as they are after I've rubbed the wax on. I want to see if the bees prefer one over the other. I'll will mark the frames so I can be sure of what they are when I check them.

I will checkerboard (alternate) the frames. I've noticed that bees will sometimes fill out one side of a box first. I think checkerboarding will give me a better idea of what they prefer. I'm also hoping to see if one works better than the other to eliminate the chance of wonky comb.

Maybe it won't make a difference, but it will be good to know either way.

This is the frame that was melted in the sun. I wish I would have thought to mark it.

The super frames are yellow so it's harder to see the wax. You will have to zoom in.

Rubbed

Rubbed and heated

We will be installing the super tonight or tomorrow.

 

[drstratton]

Visiting the bees this morning, took a couple of videos. They are busy, bringing in pollen and nectar from the buckwheat. Then I sat down to look at the videos and one of the bees decided I needed to move along. She bumped my head a couple of times and chased me off... It's that time of year!

They are so loud.

 

[drstratton]

August 21, 2025

Pulled a drone frame from the freezer today. It was from hive #1 on July 22nd. We removed it from the hive as soon as they were capped, so the mites did not have much chance to do anything in the cells. This frame was not intended for drones. It's the frame we were hoping to get honeycomb from. I cut the comb off and froze it. We then placed the empty frame back in. Upon last inspection, they had rebuilt the comb and were finally filling it with nectar. I will share a picture when we pull it.

I found over 20 mites, looked like only one per cell. If allowed to hatch out there is the potential of around 80 or more mites exploding into the hive. just from the ones I found.

Mites crawl into the cells just before they are capped. They first lay a male egg and then several female eggs. The eggs hatch, feed off of the larva, mature and the females mate with the male. When the Drones emerge the mites also emerge and attach to other bees. Their process then continues to repeat. A hive can be quickly overwhelmed, weakened and then die off from disease if not managed. Some bees are very hygienic, meaning they will pull bees out of cells if they sense something is wrong with them.

We also pulled a drone frame from hive #2 today. We placed it in the freezer. In 3 or more days we will pull it and place it back into hive. The workers will clean out the cells and prepare it for more eggs.

A healthy protein treat for the chickens!

They devoured it.

 

[drstratton]

We had intended to only place a super today, then I remembered we had a drone frame that needed to be pulled as shown above.

Inspection went well, the bees were mostly calm. I was a little concerned after getting buzzed off earlier...lol

We saw lots of bees, eggs, larvae, capped brood, nectar, bee bread and capped honey in the deep boxes. We are very pleased with the amount of honey in the deep boxes as the double deeps are what we will leave them with over winter. Supplemented with candy boards.

We have also decided to add another super to the package and swarm hives. Just need to put some frames together and add wax. I think I will also expand my experiment. Maybe splitting 4 & 4 in one and checkerboarding in the other.

 

[drstratton]

August 21, 2025

Just finished our first treatment. We waited until after dark. The bees were not very happy, but hopefully this regimen will help to mostly eradicate the mites.

 

[drstratton]

We have decided to add another honey super to our package and swarm hives. All four hives will have 2.

So we put together more honey super frames last night and I waxed the foundations. I'm going to continue my experimenting. This time I will put four heated wax frames in the middle, with two rubbed frames on each side in one of the supers. the other will have rubbed in the middle & heated on each side.

I really don't know if they will draw much comb this time of year, but I'm hoping the flow is heavy enough that they will.

There are frames of capped honey ready to be pulled. We are going camping, so we will do that next week when we get back home.

We will also be doing another treatment of OAV tonight.

Bees and blooms!
Italian Bee on Chives.