Stedic
House Bee
Was horrified on Monday when I cleared the grass outside one of my hives and found a massive pile of dead bees. This hive have been great all year in terms of behaviour but have never really gathered too much honey or filled the second brood box. I’d seen a bit of DWV about 5 weeks ago but never since, so figured I’d gotten away with it. An error of course. I suspect the pile of bees are the deformed ones. Bad times. I then opened another hive who are currently requeening and saw DWV. Very bad times.
So, today I have added MAQS to all hives because clearly I have an issue. Hopefully this will help them before the winter bees are needed and with plenty of time to requeen if the MAQS causes problems.
I had intended to requeen one evil hive - how long after finishing MAQS would you wait before introducing? They had an unsealed cell on Monday so I can check after the MAQS and it probably won’t have emerged. I thought maybe add a queen (caged) on the following Tuesday (so end of MAQS + 3 days).
So, today I have added MAQS to all hives because clearly I have an issue. Hopefully this will help them before the winter bees are needed and with plenty of time to requeen if the MAQS causes problems.
I had intended to requeen one evil hive - how long after finishing MAQS would you wait before introducing? They had an unsealed cell on Monday so I can check after the MAQS and it probably won’t have emerged. I thought maybe add a queen (caged) on the following Tuesday (so end of MAQS + 3 days).