Timestamp: Early Summer, 513 AV
Continued from: Bee A Pest
“So, we know about mites. But how do we prevent them or get rid of them?” Kavala asked, hopeful this wasn’t one of those scenarios that all the other bee diseases seemed to have going for it as well: meaning no prevention or cure.
Collin looked thoughtful. “Again, it’s mostly up to the hive and the queen herself to make sure her workers are hygienic and keep things clean. A lot of bees can groom mites off as well. You’ll notice sometimes sitting by your hives watching the bees that often bees will be seen prying mites off each other and tossing them out of the hive. But there’s a whole lot beekeepers can do. First things first though, you have to identify if you have a problem or not. One of the best ways to do that is to place a pale colored board at the bottom of your hive for a week and see what happens. Coat the board with something sticky, like a bit of lard or cooking grease. Mites are dumb, really, and often they fall off bees or fall off the comb. And once they fall on the sticky surface, they can’t crawl away. If you have a big mite problem, you should have no more than six mites on the bottom board of your hive per square foot. If you have far more than that, it is time to act. Now, there are a couple of things you can do.” Collin started out, pausing, and letting Kavala think. He was a good mentor in that way. His pause gave her a chance to think.
Kavala laughed. “Requeen. That always seems to be the answer.” She said, and then looked thoughtful. “I’d also remove the drone comb I found. Like if they build excess off the bottom of frames – mine did a ton of times last year – then I’d scrape all that off and throw it away or at least examine it for mites and see what is there. We don’t need a lot of drones anyhow, even though the bees seem to think we do. If that was the case, I’d even potentially take out any frames that were mostly drone comb as well, not just the excess bur comb, get rid of them. I might even take them to an ice house to freeze the comb killing the mites, so the bees could reuse it.” Kavala said, trying to be helpful.
Collin laughed. “Very clever. But we don’t always have to re-queen. Sometimes a queen and her colony just need a bit of help. In this case, we have a way to do it that’s so simple you’ll grin.” Collin said, bringing down a tin from his overflowing shelf and handing it to Kavala. She opened it up, not knowing what to expect, and was greeted by normal sugar.
“Sugar? Are we having tea?” She asked, laughing slightly.
Collin shook his head and brought down a mortar, pestle, and a second tin. He poured the pestle full of sugar and handed the mortar to Kavala. “Grind that up finely. We’ll need about a half a pound or so.” Collin said, smiling as Kavala picked up the pestle and started grinding the sugar. She was efficient, used to mixing her own medications. So the Konti used the philtering equipment to pulverize the sugar grains into a fine powder, pouring out the sugar when it was made into a powder and starting to fill the tin. When she was almost through the sugar Collin had given her, Kavala added more and kept going. The pair of them talked while she did so.
“So the sugar, when powdered, makes bees very slick. Well, slick to a mite not to a human. And so when the mites start moving around, they have a hard time holding on. They tend to slide off and fall down to the sticky board below. And believe me, the bees love the sugar. They will start grooming and eating it off one another almost immediately. So it’s a win win situation. The bees automatically get more hygienic and the mites can’t handle the slickness and fall off.” Collin said, chuckling.
Kavala nodded, understanding where he was going with this. “Are there any other ways?” Collin nodded.
“Yes, definitely. One thing you haven’t learned about is rolling out your own foundation and stamping it with a pattern that will encourage the size of bee cells to be smaller or larger. There’s honeycomb patterns you can stamp into a flat sheet of wax and hang in a frame that are drone comb sized and ones that are normal sized, and you can even have your stamp made slightly smaller. I roll out my own wax cores, stamp them, and often I will stamp a whole section in cells large enough for drone comb and let the bees draw the wax out. Then when they lay drone in there, I will remove the whole frame, thus taking away where the mites have likely headed in, freeze the frame… thus creating chillbrood, and hang it back in the hive for the bees to clean out. That way you create a mite trap, trap them in the middle of their lifecycles, and kill them. It can wipe out all or most of the mites in a hive that way. And if you stamp cells that are smaller than normal, the mites won’t even try to invade.” Collin said, taking down his stamped drawn wax and showing Kavala so she knew just what he was talking about.
The Konti nodded, smiled, and reviewed her notes as she finished the last of the sugar. “I’m so glad I came today… this is invaluable information. And it’s such a relief that we have a pest finally we can fight and control.” She said, looking satisfied. “Now this sugar is done. Are we going to go put it in a hive?” She asked.
Collin nodded. “Yes, just a few right outside. Grab your veil and gloves. We’ll head out there now.” He said, grabbing what looked like a silver strainer, the kind one sifted flour thorough. Kavala got her gear on and followed him out carrying the tin of powdered sugar. They walked a short distance to another group of hives, opened the first one up, took off the honey supers, and then Collin showed her how to fill up the flour sifter with powdered sugar and began to shake it down over the deep hive body brood chamber until all the bees inside looked white. She laughed and asked him if he was hungry for a sweet, as she finished the job. They closed the hive up and did the other three in that group. When they were done, they walked back to the office, dumped their gloves in the burn barrel outside, and Kavala gathered up her veil and stuffed it in the yvas bag on the gelding shed’ brought.
“Thanks for your time today, Collin. I really appreciate it. And just send word when you have time later in the season and I’ll come back to learn Queen Rearing from you.” The beekeeper grinned, shook her hand, and boosted her onto the gelding. Once settled, Kavala headed the horse towards home, her notebook and mind full of new ideas on how to care for her bees.
Continued from: Bee A Pest
“So, we know about mites. But how do we prevent them or get rid of them?” Kavala asked, hopeful this wasn’t one of those scenarios that all the other bee diseases seemed to have going for it as well: meaning no prevention or cure.
Collin looked thoughtful. “Again, it’s mostly up to the hive and the queen herself to make sure her workers are hygienic and keep things clean. A lot of bees can groom mites off as well. You’ll notice sometimes sitting by your hives watching the bees that often bees will be seen prying mites off each other and tossing them out of the hive. But there’s a whole lot beekeepers can do. First things first though, you have to identify if you have a problem or not. One of the best ways to do that is to place a pale colored board at the bottom of your hive for a week and see what happens. Coat the board with something sticky, like a bit of lard or cooking grease. Mites are dumb, really, and often they fall off bees or fall off the comb. And once they fall on the sticky surface, they can’t crawl away. If you have a big mite problem, you should have no more than six mites on the bottom board of your hive per square foot. If you have far more than that, it is time to act. Now, there are a couple of things you can do.” Collin started out, pausing, and letting Kavala think. He was a good mentor in that way. His pause gave her a chance to think.
Kavala laughed. “Requeen. That always seems to be the answer.” She said, and then looked thoughtful. “I’d also remove the drone comb I found. Like if they build excess off the bottom of frames – mine did a ton of times last year – then I’d scrape all that off and throw it away or at least examine it for mites and see what is there. We don’t need a lot of drones anyhow, even though the bees seem to think we do. If that was the case, I’d even potentially take out any frames that were mostly drone comb as well, not just the excess bur comb, get rid of them. I might even take them to an ice house to freeze the comb killing the mites, so the bees could reuse it.” Kavala said, trying to be helpful.
Collin laughed. “Very clever. But we don’t always have to re-queen. Sometimes a queen and her colony just need a bit of help. In this case, we have a way to do it that’s so simple you’ll grin.” Collin said, bringing down a tin from his overflowing shelf and handing it to Kavala. She opened it up, not knowing what to expect, and was greeted by normal sugar.
“Sugar? Are we having tea?” She asked, laughing slightly.
Collin shook his head and brought down a mortar, pestle, and a second tin. He poured the pestle full of sugar and handed the mortar to Kavala. “Grind that up finely. We’ll need about a half a pound or so.” Collin said, smiling as Kavala picked up the pestle and started grinding the sugar. She was efficient, used to mixing her own medications. So the Konti used the philtering equipment to pulverize the sugar grains into a fine powder, pouring out the sugar when it was made into a powder and starting to fill the tin. When she was almost through the sugar Collin had given her, Kavala added more and kept going. The pair of them talked while she did so.
“So the sugar, when powdered, makes bees very slick. Well, slick to a mite not to a human. And so when the mites start moving around, they have a hard time holding on. They tend to slide off and fall down to the sticky board below. And believe me, the bees love the sugar. They will start grooming and eating it off one another almost immediately. So it’s a win win situation. The bees automatically get more hygienic and the mites can’t handle the slickness and fall off.” Collin said, chuckling.
Kavala nodded, understanding where he was going with this. “Are there any other ways?” Collin nodded.
“Yes, definitely. One thing you haven’t learned about is rolling out your own foundation and stamping it with a pattern that will encourage the size of bee cells to be smaller or larger. There’s honeycomb patterns you can stamp into a flat sheet of wax and hang in a frame that are drone comb sized and ones that are normal sized, and you can even have your stamp made slightly smaller. I roll out my own wax cores, stamp them, and often I will stamp a whole section in cells large enough for drone comb and let the bees draw the wax out. Then when they lay drone in there, I will remove the whole frame, thus taking away where the mites have likely headed in, freeze the frame… thus creating chillbrood, and hang it back in the hive for the bees to clean out. That way you create a mite trap, trap them in the middle of their lifecycles, and kill them. It can wipe out all or most of the mites in a hive that way. And if you stamp cells that are smaller than normal, the mites won’t even try to invade.” Collin said, taking down his stamped drawn wax and showing Kavala so she knew just what he was talking about.
The Konti nodded, smiled, and reviewed her notes as she finished the last of the sugar. “I’m so glad I came today… this is invaluable information. And it’s such a relief that we have a pest finally we can fight and control.” She said, looking satisfied. “Now this sugar is done. Are we going to go put it in a hive?” She asked.
Collin nodded. “Yes, just a few right outside. Grab your veil and gloves. We’ll head out there now.” He said, grabbing what looked like a silver strainer, the kind one sifted flour thorough. Kavala got her gear on and followed him out carrying the tin of powdered sugar. They walked a short distance to another group of hives, opened the first one up, took off the honey supers, and then Collin showed her how to fill up the flour sifter with powdered sugar and began to shake it down over the deep hive body brood chamber until all the bees inside looked white. She laughed and asked him if he was hungry for a sweet, as she finished the job. They closed the hive up and did the other three in that group. When they were done, they walked back to the office, dumped their gloves in the burn barrel outside, and Kavala gathered up her veil and stuffed it in the yvas bag on the gelding shed’ brought.
“Thanks for your time today, Collin. I really appreciate it. And just send word when you have time later in the season and I’ll come back to learn Queen Rearing from you.” The beekeeper grinned, shook her hand, and boosted her onto the gelding. Once settled, Kavala headed the horse towards home, her notebook and mind full of new ideas on how to care for her bees.
