Last week's inspection

Failed to press 'send' on my last blog entry and only just noticed - duh!

Mrs FG and I inspected both colonies last Saturday and gave them new Apiguard. Both trays still had dried up crystals in them.

Queen in Colony 2 seemed to have stopped laying - there was lots of sealed brood, but a big ring of empty cells around them that had nothing in at all. I double-checked, in case the eggs were there but I really couldn't see anything this time.

Colony 1 is still going great guns - lots of bees and using the lower brood box to put some stores away and do some brood rearing.

Colony 2 seems a bit depleted - they are only very slowly building out the top box (still 2 frames of foundation to use). I was probably wrong to give them a whole extra box of foundation below their main brood box before they had filled the first one properly. I'll check how much they are doing in the bottom brood box today and may shrink them to just one if I can.

Both colonies had stores, but colony 2 didn't have very much - 2 heavy frames plus some bits and pieces. I may feed them both today if there's not much there. Today is the first day they've had reasonable weather for ages, so I guess they are getting quite low.

I'm wondering if I can take the Apiguard out today and get some brood-rearing going again before the Winter gets here . . .

FG

 

[oliver90owner]

Have you not read the instructions on the apiguard? That is why they are there, on the box, on the carton, on the internet! Oh, and to be followed, after reading.

 

[Firegazer]

RAB,
thanks for your helpful observation. Yes, I have read the instructions on the box which says "take the old one away at 2 weeks, put the new one it and leave in it until all the crystals have gone".

My issue is that the colony is a slightly expanded nuc (7/8 Lang frames or so in a full sized poly Lang brood box. This is on top of another full-sized brood box to give them room to expand, and to overwinter them with an OMF, but not right underneath the cluster.

I gave them the full dose because the box volume is that of a full colony and I wanted the vapour concentration to be correct. There aren't as many bees (clearly) to remove the gunk as there would be for a full-sized colony. The queen seems to have stopped laying, and I'd like her to start again, as soon as possible to increase the number of bees.

So, I want to leave the Apiguard in long enough to work properly, but get it over with as soon as possible to build up the colony for Winter. It won't do them much good to be low on varroa, but also low on bees . . .

I'm having a look in later (or tomorrow if the weather doesn't improve) to see if there is any new brood laying going on. If there's still no new brood laying going on, there won't be any capped brood either by now and I may have to abort the treatment and catch up by using Oxalic in December.

FG