I'm interested how beekeeping is going on in Alabama. How often do you harvest honey per year? And you don't have winter right? So do the bees ever make a break and don't breed? Is Varroa a Problem in your area?
Discussion
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Varroa is THE PROBLEM, though we remain successful with formic acid treatments. Winter is sketch down here; some years it barely gets cold enough to kill the mosquitoes, but this year it snowed 8” for the first time in my lifetime, suffice it to say 50 years. As for breeding, that depends upon your queen, and it varies from hive to hive, but generally our queens do well. There is a phenomenon known as Fall Dwindle Disease, whereby some hives will be lost, reduce in population, or become weak in the late fall, so perhaps this is what you refer to. Don’t hesitate to ask further questions, if you care to.
Varroa is the worst. Up here in the north we need formic acid in summer and oxalic acid in the fall.
Yes. We used to use oxalic but formic shows better results, twice a year. Why do you switch to oxalic in the fall?
And we are cutting out Dronebreed now in May and June. It's very effective against Varroa.
We always cut that done too
Do you also do it in May and June, dieGoldschmiedin? LethalLee are you in the north, or Canada perhaps? Where are you dieGoldschmiedin, if you don’t mind saying? Are you in Germany? Your winter will start earlier and your spring begins later if that is the case, which affects the months you will cut the dronebrood out. So that is why I am inquire the geographical info. We might need to do it later, peehaps August, in south Alabama.
In the North, south of Canada. If using packages we are starting in mid/late march. Or NUCs in late April/early May. Typically wrapping the hives in tar paper in November. We winter with 3 deeps as opposed to 2.
Very interesting! We have never cut out drone brood, but this gives me an idea! Poor drones just weigh on the hive in the fall anyway, until the workers are obliged to push them out in order to conserve honey.
We are keeping our bees in Zander frames. We just take a frame without middlewall and without wires and they make only drones in this. We cut that out and freeze it to kill the drones in the most gentle way. If you open the cells you can see the varroa sitting on the drones, they prefer drone cells because they are bigger.
Those varroa will be born on the bees, you are correct. We have seen larvae with a varroa already in place, just waiting for that bee to be born. The varroa is such a parasitic vampire. I detest them!