Advice about trickle plz.

[Bakerbee]

PH can you pop that link up again please. It wont load. Thanks.

 

[Parsonage Bees]

I used a 3.2% weight/volume strength described on a blog called The Apiarist : LINK

All the calculations laid out and made sense. As I only have, max, 20 seams of bees I only needed to mix 7.5g of the Api-Bioxal so I can save the rest for next year.

My guess is that with the lengthening days and the warm temperatures, whatever trigger the colony has, there is going to be more brood and therefore more varroa in that brood from now onwards so delay will make any treatment less effective.

My bees are never pleased to see me and apparently a sting from an older bee hurts more so wear a suit and gloves.

Just a thought, do you need to treat? I have 10+ varroa dropping / day and signs of DWV so I need to treat or they may not survive until spring.

. . . . Ben

 

[Bakerbee]

Thanks Ben i am going to trickle early a.m. tommorrow. Will let you all know how i get on. Thanks all.

 

[Finno]

PH can you pop that link up again please. It wont load. Thanks.

Typo in link. Delete the letter "u" and you should be good to go.

 

[Bakerbee]

Hello all hope christmas hols were good for all. Heres my update on first trickle. Well a couple of rookie mistakes but all in all job done. First mistake was when i closed up hive last week during first attempt to trickle ( couldnt coz bees were not clustered) i put super back on the wrong way thus criss crossing bb frames. So on inspection today, yes you guessed it a small number of top part of cluster was in the super. Hmmmm i thought if i trickle over the two fames i could see in super with bees i wouldnt be getting the larger cluster in bb. So i very gently rotated super to get all fames back in line, closed them up n left them for a bit to re adjust. Went back out and realized they had regrouped into bb thankfully so removed super and got on n trickled 5ml per seam of warm solution. I really hope i did the right thing. The super is so full of honey for them it was impossible to trickle properly and would not have got onto the bb fames laying in opposite direction. So fingers crossed i havent made a huge mistake by rotating them correctly and lesson learnt.

 

[Swarm]

'Crossing' the super on top of the brood box is used by some as a way to prevent lifting brood frames that are stuck to the honey frames. Never a good idea and wouldn't be possible with most hives as they are not square.
The job is done now so good.
For next year, if you choose to trickle, don't remove the super. I realise why you had to rotate it this time but that was because you took it off last attempt and put it back wrong. You can trickle the solution down between the seams in the super, no need to remove it.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

'Crossing' the super on top of the brood box is used by some as a way to prevent lifting brood frames that are stuck to the honey frames. Never a good idea and wouldn't be possible with most hives as they are not square.
The job is done now so good.
For next year, if you choose to trickle, don't remove the super. I realise why you had to rotate it this time but that was because you took it off last attempt and put it back wrong. You can trickle the solution down between the seams in the super, no need to remove it.

 

[Etton]

I trickled today with hives in different stages of activity. Some active on top bars, some visibly clustered, some clustered low down and out of sight. I was going to trickle just my two problem hives with High varroa drops but decided to do all and may vape in Jan to hopefully make certain of a big hit to the varroa.

 

[Parsonage Bees]

Good to hear it went OK, Bakerbee.

One week on my lot have dropped nearly 400 mites. No unusual die-off of bees, just a few each day.

I think I've missed the broodless period so I'm expecting I'll need a spring treatment.

. . .. Ben

 

[Eyeman]

Good to hear it went OK, Bakerbee.

One week on my lot have dropped nearly 400 mites. No unusual die-off of bees, just a few each day.

I think I've missed the broodless period so I'm expecting I'll need a spring treatment.

. . .. Ben

What makes you think you've missed the broodless period. Are there brood cappings on the inspection floor or did you take a peak?

 

[Parsonage Bees]

I'm just checking the tray under the mesh floor. Not as easy to tell brood cappings from honey cappings now colony in second year. The wax is darker generally but there are still concentrations of darker cappings and varroa.

#edit# most of the stores are ivy and I think it's the cause of the sugar crystals amongst the cappings.