Calum

Altogether a strange year for me so far..
I lost 2 colonies over the winter (absconded), and from the 19 that survived I kept 7, the rest I sold on or traded for wild boar.
Everything was looking great for a super spring crop and then April went cold and wet, with may bringing more of the same. no honey, lots of lost queens on their maiting flights, not much joy at all.
With far more TLC than should be needed I have got myself back up to 20 colonies, the Linde and clover is ...

• - Shake the bees from a central frame in the super onto plastic sheeting
• - Fill approx 30g bees (that is about 300) into a labelled container
• - After killing the bees by freezing them weigh the sample of bees
• - Let the bees soak for at least 15 minutes in soapy water (use washing up liquid) and shake thoroughly.
• - Separate the varroa from the bees buy rinsing through a double sieve. Or use a course metal mesh (too catch the bees) over a coffee filter paper
• - count the varroa / 10g

...

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Hi
so just thought I would post some pictures of catching a swarm on sunday.
It was tricky as it was spread on 3 branch stubs. (read on below)


So after wetting the bees I used a tin to shake them into. (Would have loved to use a bigger box but the stubs blocked access) ...

Nice week so far, the bees have been busy collecting pollen and water (see picture).
It is about to get colder and more snow is forecast. Hope it does not catch the bees on the wrong foot.
Mind you they have been doing this for a couple of million years, so they are a little way ahead of me.
We are still a long way off from the spring though (the second photo).

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Poor weather over here +10°C!
After a nice long cold (down to -20°C) it is worryingly warm.
The bees are out 'feeding the flowers' which is good.
But there is condesation under the lids of the hives.
The bees are in brood - bad news indeed.

Local logic goes along the lines of if the bees are breeding early (and with a small brood) the varroa are too.
The older bees will die earlier and the product from a small brood will have very high varroa ...

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