New and unknowledgeable

[DALEGREEN]

I am very new to beekeeping having captured a swarm that escaped into a bush from a colony in my roof. With Covid I have not been able to attend any courses but have been reading, u tubing and following this forum to try to obtain the relevant knowledge. Despite this my hive inspections have been more a miss than a hit. At first the bees were pretty unfriendly and I got stung 4 times when I tried to do my first inspection so I invested in a more protective suit. Even with this I have found it difficult to identify a queen or distinguish capped honey from brood. My National hive brood box is pretty full of bees and drawn comb but they have always ignored the super when I put it on. My question is that given that the hive is very active now in October some 4 months after the swarm took up residence can I assume there is a laying queen. Would the original bees have died out by now without one?
I see that on here many recommend as little disturbance as possible and I have not tried to inspect for the last month. What do I need to do other than feeding and insulating to get them over the winter.

 

[Jaxxmac]

I'm fairly new too. I've had a mentor to help me along a bit though so kudos to you for managing this far. I think a bee lives for about 40 days so if you have an active hive that's a good sign. I believe that October is time to make sure the stores are in for winter, I was told the brood should weigh as much as a well packed suitcase at this point. Someone more knowledgeable than me can advise of an exact weight, but if it seems light, feed a bit now. Insulate the hive if necessary, then make sure mouse guards are in place, remove any varroa treatment strips and leave until Christmas! They get fondant for Christmas to top up any stores and depending on how active they are you might need another until they can get out in spring. Good luck!

 

[Swarm]

Hiya Dale,
Bees are pretty resourceful little creatures and do a good job of looking after themselves, I think we can say there is a queen is residence. Don't read much into them ignoring the super, it's been an odd year to put it mildly a lot of my colonies were in subsistence mode since early June.
First clue for brood definition, it will be central on the comb and capped brood is a biscuit colour bit like a Jaffa cake. Capped stores is more white and is above and behind the brood when looking at the comb.
Right now, they are preparing for Winter, best not be lifting frames now so concentrate on making sure they are well provisioned. Top insulation is a good idea and ample for them. Have you done varroa treatment? What did you use and when?

Inspecting is something that should be done confidently, calmly and above all with respect. Be gentle with the bees, no sudden movements and avoid crushing any. Always have your smoker lit whether you need it or not, sometimes lovely gentle bees can be a nuisance, getting in between the hoffman bars as you are trying to close the gap, just generally slowing you up, not nasty but you don't want to squash one so a gentle, little puff of smoke that drifts down onto the area will move them to avoid accidents. Note you are not blasting smoke at them, always consider those very sensitive antennae.
Lot's of things can affect their mood, it's something you consider when assessing them and you learn to recognise why they are annoyed. Weather, dearth, end of flow, wasps are but a few natural reasons and the beekeeper needs to be aware. The realities are that sometimes you need to do something and conditions are not ideal and at times like this you just have to get on and get it done. In cases like this I'm not surprised if I'm stung. If however, on a warm Sunny day with good steady income, they fly up and buzz and ping or try stinging they are monitored and requeened if it continues.
So the main question now is the one about treatment

 

[user 819]

If the bees greet you when you lift off the crown board then try smoking gently from the top rather then the bottom or entrance. I smoke via the crown board feed hole first.

 

[Swarm]

I'm fairly new too. I've had a mentor to help me along a bit though so kudos to you for managing this far. I think a bee lives for about 40 days so if you have an active hive that's a good sign. I believe that October is time to make sure the stores are in for winter, I was told the brood should weigh as much as a well packed suitcase at this point. Someone more knowledgeable than me can advise of an exact weight, but if it seems light, feed a bit now. Insulate the hive if necessary, then make sure mouse guards are in place, remove any varroa treatment strips and leave until Christmas! They get fondant for Christmas to top up any stores and depending on how active they are you might need another until they can get out in spring. Good luck!

Bees with no brood will live a lot longer, if left a queenless colony will drag on for ages.
Winter weight is usually quoted as c 40lbs/20kg.
2 gallons of invert weighs 14kg for a comparison.
Most I've ever fed was 12 pints, fondant again, if they need it. Generally goes on late Feb/March if Winter is dragging on.

Edit: oops, poor metric conversion corrected, thanks Hemo.

 

[user 819]

Winter weight for colonies can vary so much but 40lbs/20kg is a belt and braces job. My colonies in Poly broods use less then wooden brood bees and some bees can use well less then then 30lbs.

 

[DALEGREEN]

Hiya Dale,
Bees are pretty resourceful little creatures and do a good job of looking after themselves, I think we can say there is a queen is residence. Don't read much into them ignoring the super, it's been an odd year to put it mildly a lot of my colonies were in subsistence mode since early June.
First clue for brood definition, it will be central on the comb and capped brood is a biscuit colour bit like a Jaffa cake. Capped stores is more white and is above and behind the brood when looking at the comb.
Right now, they are preparing for Winter, best not be lifting frames now so concentrate on making sure they are well provisioned. Top insulation is a good idea and ample for them. Have you done varroa treatment? What did you use and when?

Inspecting is something that should be done confidently, calmly and above all with respect. Be gentle with the bees, no sudden movements and avoid crushing any. Always have your smoker lit whether you need it or not, sometimes lovely gentle bees can be a nuisance, getting in between the hoffman bars as you are trying to close the gap, just generally slowing you up, not nasty but you don't want to squash one so a gentle, little puff of smoke that drifts down onto the area will move them to avoid accidents. Note you are not blasting smoke at them, always consider those very sensitive antennae.
Lot's of things can affect their mood, it's something you consider when assessing them and you learn to recognise why they are annoyed. Weather, dearth, end of flow, wasps are but a few natural reasons and the beekeeper needs to be aware. The realities are that sometimes you need to do something and conditions are not ideal and at times like this you just have to get on and get it done. In cases like this I'm not surprised if I'm stung. If however, on a warm Sunny day with good steady income, they fly up and buzz and ping or try stinging they are monitored and requeened if it continues.
So the main question now is the one about treatment

I have seen so many conflicting threads about varoa treatment that I confess I haven't treated. The bees in my roof seem healthy enough without and have been there 3/4 years. I live in a very rural location my nearest neighbor being across several fields. Not sure if there are any other beekeepers nearby for them to catch it from?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I have seen so many conflicting threads about varoa treatment that I confess I haven't treated. The bees in my roof seem healthy enough without and have been there 3/4 years. I live in a very rural location my nearest neighbor being across several fields. Not sure if there are any other beekeepers nearby for them to catch it from?

If your bees have no varroa, they're either unique or dead

 

[drex]

If your bees have no varroa, they're either unique or dead

Without doing an actual count, I would err on side of caution and treat. Especially since you only have the one colony. Possibly getting too late in your area for thymol based treatment, which is temperature dependent

 

[DALEGREEN]

If your bees have no varroa, they're either unique or dead

If your bees have no varroa, they're either unique or dead

I understand that they will have it but wild colonies survive without treatment and I am not trying to produce honey for sale just keeping them as a hobby. Is living in a hive more problematic for them than living in the wild

 

[Erichalfbee]

I understand that they will have it but wild colonies survive without treatment and I am not trying to produce honey for sale just keeping them as a hobby. Is living in a hive more problematic for them than living in the wild

Talk to pargyle. He has successfully kept bees without treating for varroa for some years but he does have a proactive approach. It involves actually knowing what the varroa burden is. It’s no good just letting the bees get on with it. You stand a high chance of losing them over winter.

 

[drex]

I understand that they will have it but wild colonies survive without treatment and I am not trying to produce honey for sale just keeping them as a hobby. Is living in a hive more problematic for them than living in the wild

Wild bees swarm and hence have brood breaks, keeping varroa down. For a good crop we try to avoid swarming. It is not what they live in but how they are managed . Swarms can be a nuisance to neighbours.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Is living in a hive more problematic for them than living in the wild

Depends on the beekeeper

 

[Levitt53]

I have seen so many conflicting threads about varoa treatment that I confess I haven't treated. The bees in my roof seem healthy enough without and have been there 3/4 years. I live in a very rural location my nearest neighbor being across several fields. Not sure if there are any other beekeepers nearby for them to catch it from?

I've had bees for six years and only treated in the first year. It is a management thing but it's just another beekeeping thing you need to work out for yourself. The joys of beekeeping! But treatment free is a whole lot less of a faff!

 

[pargyle]

Talk to pargyle. He has successfully kept bees without treating for varroa for some years but he does have a proactive approach. It involves actually knowing what the varroa burden is. It’s no good just letting the bees get on with it. You stand a high chance of losing them over winter.

It's not a good time to be going treatment free going into winter ... far safer for a one hive owner to treat them for varroa ... even if it is only these Oxalic acid strips it's better than nothing and at a tenner your bees are worth a lot more than this ...

https://www.abelo.co.uk/shop/varroa-control/oxalic-acid-strips/
I don't treat my bees but ... get a year or two under your belt and learn to read your bees before you consider going treatment free ... it's not as easy as you may think. You have a lot of beekeepers down in your area - you might not see them but they are there and your bees will fly 3-4Km so the chances of them picking up varroa from other colonies is almost 100%. Draw a circle of 3km radius on a map of your area and then a couple more that have their centres on the circumference of your circle ... by the time you've done you will see that your bees have the ability to interract with bees that are miles away from you ... just because you can't see other colonies ... they will be there.

If you have a mesh floor to your hive then put the inspection board in for a day or two and see if there are any varroa that drop through - they are very easy to identify. Count how many there are ... it's not a perfect method but it's better than no method. Clean the board off before you put the strips in and then do another count over the same period. You may be pleasantly surprised and thereagain you might get a really nasty shock. Report back and let us know ... and you can then think about a serious method of treatment if the mite fall is excessive.

I'm not discouraging you to go treatment free ... just encouraging you to wait a bit and get some beekeeping under your belt first - you can then go into it with yours eyes open. There are risks.

 

[fiat500bee]

Hi Dale,

I've only this year started beekeeping (so please don't listen to me ) but I didn't expect part of it to consist of killing bees in alcohol to see if they have varroa. One of the other ways of detecting varroa appears to be shaking them in a jar of icing sugar. Everyone here will tell you that what you might see or not see under the hive on the tray is no indication of the real number of mites and I am sure they are correct. When they say you can't go treatment-free without first knowing the mite load, that implies you would be prepared to treat them if the load was over a certain level.

If you do treat, there doesn't seem to be a working method which doesn't immerse the bees in the fumes of strong chemicals; this is on a creature which is widely accepted as having a highly complex system of communication based largely on the transfer between each insect of traces of a multitude of complex organic compounds. On these grounds alone....and there are many more, I would prefer not to treat my bees.

The greater problem appears to be that some experienced beekeepers have found that unless they treat for varroa their bees are unlikely to make it through the winter. From what I have seen this creates a justified level of fear amongst beekeepers which leads to a presumption that all bee colonies are almost certain to have dangerous levels of varroa by this time of year unless they are treated.

The only way to find out how true that is is by risking non-treatment. If you apply treatment as a prophylactic you will never know if you might have got away with it...but "getting away with it" is as good as most people would assess your bees' achievement if they do.

I'm chancing on non-treatment but coupling this but alongside a process of managing my bees slightly differently from the conventional in some other ways.

Good luck with whatever you try to do but maybe order a nuc for the Spring, just in case.

 

[pargyle]

Hi Dale,

I've only this year started beekeeping (so please don't listen to me ) but I didn't expect part of it to consist of killing bees in alcohol to see if they have varroa. One of the other ways of detecting varroa appears to be shaking them in a jar of icing sugar. Everyone here will tell you that what you might see or not see under the hive on the tray is no indication of the real number of mites and I am sure they are correct. When they say you can't go treatment-free without first knowing the mite load, that implies you would be prepared to treat them if the load was over a certain level.......
.........If you do treat, there doesn't seem to be a working method which doesn't immerse the bees in the fumes of strong chemicals; this is on a creature which is widely accepted as having a highly complex system of communication based largely on the transfer between each insect of traces of a multitude of complex organic compounds. On these grounds alone....and there are many more, I would prefer not to treat my bees.....
I'm chancing on non-treatment but coupling this but alongside a process of managing my bees slightly differently from the conventional in some other ways.

Good luck with whatever you try to do but maybe order a nuc for the Spring, just in case.

OK ... not picking holes but as a non-treater there's a few points I would make:

1. You are correct - going treatment free does need you to know what the mite load is ... without that knowledge you really are risking all. But you don't just need to know what the mite load is going into winter you need to know what it is all the season through and whilst assessing the load you need to watch your bees and see how they react to various levels of varroa. Knowing when the bees are managing the mite load (and there always WILL be a mite load) is the key to keeping bees without treating them. I accept that it is a lot for a new beekeeper to do and my comments about it being the wrong time of year to start are very pertinent. DO you FEEL lucky ... in the immortal words of Dirty Harry.

2. Checkin a cupful of bees with a sugar roll is not invasive during the season and it does not harm the bees. I've never seen a bee die from a sugar roll and I must have done hundreds. I've done alcohol washes but I decided very early on that they were no more indicative than a sugar roll and I don't do them now. A sugar roll now is out of the question - the bees are making their winter preps ... so the board is the only option for a check - and if there are a lot of dead mites on the board .. treat the colony now.

3. Oxalic acid is a naturally occurring compound - rhubarb leaves are full of it ... I've not treated my bees but I've used OA by sublimation and with OA impregnated strips on other peoples hives .. again, I've never see a dead bee on the landing board after treatment and with sublimation it is over so quickly that they don't even come out of the hive. It has a massive effect on the varroa population with virtually no effect on the bees - certainly, apart from the mite drop - there are no outward signs they have been treated. I would agree with you that there are some treatments which the bees clearly hate and they empty out of the hive .. there are also some risks with some of the treatments that given inept use can have an effect on the bees/brood/queens. It's one of the reasons I suggested the OA strips. Cheap, easy and effective to a degree.

4. Treatment free to me is not a doctrine .... I'd prefer to remain treatment free and will as long as my bees cope with the mites but .... and it's a pretty big BUT .. if you find a colony that is not coping with the mites and they are exhibiting DWV or Varoosis then you have to be prepared to either treat or dispose of the colony. You can't redistribute bees that are heavily and continually infested and you can't let them suffer ... you choice is treat or kill.. With one colony your choice is somewhat limited. So far I have not had to kill or treat one of my colonies .. and I accept that I've been lucky ... like I said earlier - Do you feel lucky ?

Good luck with whatever you try to do but maybe DEFINITELY order a nuc for the Spring,

 

[DALEGREEN]

OK ... not picking holes but as a non-treater there's a few points I would make:

1. You are correct - going treatment free does need you to know what the mite load is ... without that knowledge you really are risking all. But you don't just need to know what the mite load is going into winter you need to know what it is all the season through and whilst assessing the load you need to watch your bees and see how they react to various levels of varroa. Knowing when the bees are managing the mite load (and there always WILL be a mite load) is the key to keeping bees without treating them. I accept that it is a lot for a new beekeeper to do and my comments about it being the wrong time of year to start are very pertinent. DO you FEEL lucky ... in the immortal words of Dirty Harry.

2. Checkin a cupful of bees with a sugar roll is not invasive during the season and it does not harm the bees. I've never seen a bee die from a sugar roll and I must have done hundreds. I've done alcohol washes but I decided very early on that they were no more indicative than a sugar roll and I don't do them now.

3. Oxalic acid is a naturally occurring compound - rhubarb leaves are full of it ... I've not treated my bees but I've used OA by sublimation and with OA impregnated strips on other peoples hives .. again, I've never see a dead bee on the landing board after treatment and with sublimation it is over so quickly that they don't even come out of the hive. It has a massive effect on the varroa population with virtually no effect on the bees - certainly, apart from the mite drop - there are no outward signs they have been treated. I would agree with you that there are some treatments which the bees clearly hate and they empty out of the hive .. there are also some risks with some of the treatments that given inept use can have an effect on the bees/brood/queens. It's one of the reasons I suggested the OA strips. Cheap, easy and effective to a degree.

4. Treatment free to me is not a doctrine .... I'd prefer to remain treatment free and will as long as my bees cope with the mites but .... and it's a pretty big BUT .. if you find a colony that is not coping with the mites and they are exhibiting DWV or Varoosis then you have to be prepared to either treat or dispose of the colony. You can't redistribute bees that are heavily and continually infested and you can't let them suffer ... you choice is treat or kill.. With one colony your choice is somewhat limited. So far I have not had to kill or treat one of my colonies .. and I accept that I've been lucky ... like I said earlier - Do you feel lucky ?

Good luck with whatever you try to do but maybe DEFINITELY order a nuc for the Spring,

I have bought a poly hive for use next year. My national has an open mesh floor with no inspection tray (just how it came and I knew no better) I'll try to get a varroa count and some strips. Have to gen up on sugar roll. Thanks
member: 9418"]
Varoosis
[/QUOTE]

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

My national has an open mesh floor with no inspection tray (just how it came and I knew no better)

well just get a piece of correx and use that (plenty of estate agent's signs around )

 

[DALEGREEN]

Will do