# Dead out



## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

Rats. My best, and oldest, hive is dead. I opened it and it's packed full of honey with very few bees clustered in place between 2 frames. I didn't have time today to tear it apart and see what evidence there is. Another hive nearby was displaying lots of cleansing flights 2 days ago and this one was quiet so I knew it was not good. Bummer.


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

I was about to start a "Bring Out Your Dead" thread that we could all use rather than everyone starting their own "My hive died" threads.

You beat me to it. Sorry to hear about your hive Coyote. I lost one too- it wasn't my best hive by any means. It's also just the first. I expect more before winter's over. I haven't pawed through mine yet, still to cold but I already know- Mites got mine, even if they starved to death.

Let us know what you find.

George-


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

Post a picture. We need it bad. I'll be the first to suggest mites..no wait its AFB, with a touch of PMS and......is that a deformed wing I see....


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## Dick Allen (Sep 4, 2004)

BjornBee.....

(BTW BjornBee have you changed your mind about not wanting Tailgater reinstated? If you've not noticed it has spread down into the For Sale want ads.)

[ December 21, 2005, 09:46 PM: Message edited by: Dick Allen ]


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

Dick Allen, 
To answer the question, no.

As for the "for sale" section, who is that moderator anyways???


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

Sorry to hear about the loss of another productive hive. I hate that feeling of realizing a hive isn't doing well, opening it and feeling even worse when its death is confirmed.

I love the discussion, though! Now we're spreading into another thread with the debate about mites/starvation/other diseases. Any mite counts for us on your dead-out, George?

Maybe I'll vote "sacbrood." I don't remember reading anyone else suggesting "sacbrood." I wonder why not? Everything else gets blamed.


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## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

I think Santa is bringing a digital camera for Christmas. If he does, I'll practice on the dead hive.


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

How about mite counts from your hive, Coyote? I'm assuming since it was your best and most productive hive that mite counts must have been pretty low; any idea if mites were to blame for the loss of this hive?


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## DChap (Oct 19, 2005)

I've lost two of mine, late combines that I was not sure would make it through the winter anyway. It has been warm enough the past two day for cleansing flights, the other 15 still look strong and the hives are still quiet heavy.


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## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

> How about mite counts from your hive, Coyote?


That's what I'm thinking, although the last mite count didn't seem alarming. I did sugar shakes, which I know can be misleading because of the distribution of mites in adults. I probably got 300 clean bees in a population that was already crashing from mites. We'll see.


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

Sugar shakes are ok, but you need a reasonable estimate of the total bee population for them to mean much. Also, whether there is brood or not. You'll see a lot more mites in a sugar shake when the bees are broodless than you will when there is brood.

Looking forward to hearing what you find out.


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

George quotes himself:


> Sugar shakes are ok, but you need a reasonable estimate of the total bee population for them to mean much.


Or do you? Since nobody took exception to my statement, I suppose *I* will. If you're looking for a percent level of infestation, then knowing the number of bees you sampled is all that's required, assuming the bees sampled are representative of the colony population, which they're not, but does this introduce a significant level of uncertainty in your results? 

I don't think it does and any error is going to be on the conservative side- you're going to tend to over-estimate the total mite population which is better than under-estimating it.

Assuming you sample nurse bees (which you should) then the percent of bees with mites in your sample is representative of the percent of all nurse bees with mites, regardless of how many nurse bees in your hive. Perhaps I'm stating the obvious here, but *I* was confused, so maybe others out there are confused too.

It's still necessary to consider whether there is brood in the hive or not because this will significantly affect the number of phoretic mites on your bees.

It then becomes a (simple?) matter of deciding what percent level of infestation you consider "acceptable".

George-


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## Robert Hawkins (May 27, 2005)

Okay, I missed it. When and Why are we using percent instead of total mites in the floorboard? I thought I had an understanding on this and then all of a sudden folks are talking about percentages which (I thought) concerned some science experiments but I shouldn't have to deal with...?????

Hawk


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## Mabe (Mar 22, 2005)

No answer to the thump this week on the hive whose feeder plug dropped out of the pail. Syrup covered bees at below zero...big time operator error or equipment failure? Either way, ya feel awful.


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## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

> When and Why are we using percent instead of total mites in the floorboard?


It has to do with the method. I wasn't doing a drop count on the bottom board, rather the sugar shake that requires the stuffing (and estimating the number) of hapless bees into a jar. In the drop count you're counting mites from the entire population, in the shake you're sampling a percentage of the population.


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## Robert Hawkins (May 27, 2005)

Okay thanks, thought I was way behind there for a moment. Better now.

Mabe, that is awful. Let me bee the first to say, "Don't do that again." Ya wanna hit somebody? I haven't seen rwjedi on in a while but Jim Fischer's on regular. 

Hawk


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

> assuming the bees sampled are representative 
> of the colony population, which they're not, 
> but does this introduce a significant level 
> of uncertainty in your results? 

Well, I'm not a statistician, but I have taken
enough statistics to help.

WHERE you take your sample clearly is going to
make a BIG difference, as you want to get
a consistent mix of foragers to house bees.
But as long as you are consistent, and you
take your readings over regular time intervals,
your trend-line graph is going to be valid,
as it will show the number of mites found 
on that "mix" of bees, which was can assume 
to contain many more house bees than foragers.

So, the question is more properly asked as:
"Is 100 bees a valid sample size for
BOTH a colony of 30,000 bees and 60,000
bees?"

So, we've got some bees, and we don't know the
exact total colony population. Some have mites, 
some don't. Its going to be random.

Random means a "bell curve" of data.
This makes things easy.

The "answer" a statistician would give to
your question is "one over the square root 
of 'n', for random results". The implication
is that the population really doesn't matter,
only the sample size matters in terms of the
error rate and the number of "outliers" {wacky
nonsense readings} in your data set.

So, if we run the math above for various 
sample sizes ["n"] we get:

n......... Error Percent
------------------------
1......... 35.70%
4......... 17.85%
16........ 08.90%
25........ 07.10%
100....... 03.57%
10,000.... 00.36%

So, with a sample size of 100, we have a sampling error
of 3.57%, and if we sampled 10,000 bees, we'd have a 
much better sampling error of 0.36%, but we can't expect
to properly "check" 10,000 bees by shaking them around
in a jar, nor do we want to take the time to gather that
many bees.

So, if you sample 100 bees, and get a mite count of
"y", your reading is likely to be off by no more than 
3.57% either way 68% of the time.

Sure, you CAN get a wacky count now and again, so in
the event of a really wacky count too high or too low
to seem reasonable, given last week's count, take two 
MORE samples from that hive, and throw out the count 
that is furthest from the other two.

And of course, all this points out just how risky it 
would be to "trust" a single count enough to make
a treatment decision, thus invalidating the whole
concept of "thresholds" based upon a single count,
as >>>ONLY 68%<<< of our readings are certain to be
within the 3.57% error of one standard deviation.

So, ya gotta take multiple readings over time, at
regular intervals, or you are doing little more
than guessing.


=============================================
Those who care about the math can read below.
Everyone else can stop here.
=============================================

You wanna see me do the math, eh? OK.
So, we take a jar of bees {continuing to leave
the crucial question "how many lids in a jar"
unanswered}, we chill them down, and we check 
EACH BEE with a magnifying glass. Lets say
that we sample 100 bees, and 87 of them are
mite-free.

So, p-hat {a lower-case "p" with an accent circumflex 
[looks like an upside-down "v"] over it}
is our proportion of "successes" in the sample:

p-hat = x/n

where x is the number of successes,
and n is the sample size.

so, p-hat = 0.87

But how GOOD is this estimate?

Well, if we took hundreds of samples of 100 bees
from the same colony, and calculated p-hat for 
each, how would those values of p-hat be distributed
on a graph? You might say that all those p-hat
values are going to look... random!

And you'd be right. But don't be discouraged,
this is good news, not bad news. x is just
a binomial random variable ["n" trials, probability "p"]
and we can define the OBSERVED proportion to be the
random variable, big-p-hat, [same as p-hat, except a
capital p].

So, it is random, and we can say without fear
that the counts will make a BELL CURVE, the 
classical way "random stuff" tends to be 
distributed in this universe. So,

1) The mean of big-p-hat is Σ [big-p-hat] = p
{where "p" means "probability"}

2) The standard deviation of big-p-hat is
[the square root of [p * [1-p]] divided by
the square root of n

3) For a large n, big-p-hat is roughly normal

So, the observed values of big-p-hat will be
centered upon p, and their standard deviation
{"spread"} is proportional to one over the 
square root of n, the sample size.

Since big-p-hat is {nearly} normal, we can estimate
that roughly 68% of all estimates will fall within
one standard deviation of the true value of p.
{Think of a bell curve, slice it into standard 
deviations, and you find this to be true.}

So, what's our standard deviation?
We want to know that, because that's our sampling
error. We can assume one mite per bee, simply
because multiple mites per bee would happen only
after infestation got completely out of control.

With n = 100 and a p = 0.85 {which I pulled out of my,
ummm, back pocket as "close enough" to 0.87} we can 
expect about 68% of our 100 bee samples to fall in the 
very narrow interval of 0.8143 to 0.8857, because the 
equation for standard deviation is the square root of 
[[mite free bees] * [mites]]/100

[0.85 * 0.15]/100 = 0.0357, and we add and subtract 
0.0357 to 0.85 to get our range.


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

I'm not going to say that percentages are the way to go when counting mites, but you have to have some idea of colony size in relation to your mite count to determine whether or not the mites are a problem.

For instance, you find 50 mites on a sticky board after one week. Is that a problem? Is it a problem in a 2-queen hive with 75,000 workers? Would it be a problem if the count came from a 3-pound package you'd installed one week ago?

Even if you don't calculate the percentages, I think you have to use relative ratios or percentages or something along those lines to determine the magnitude of a mite problem.


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

Nice job on the math, Jim! Excellent job explaining it, too!


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

> I think you have to use relative ratios

Right, any single measurement in isolation
has no meaning at all unless it is compared
to something else!

All we can do is compare it to a prior set 
of readings, and watch the slope of the curve 
(the *RATE* of mite population increase) 
to see if the mite population is growing slowly,
fairly stable, or growing at a scary rapid rate.

We can only guesstimate the bee population,
and people are lousy at estimating based
upon a glance, which is why it is so 
tough to guess the number of frame nails
in a jar at bee meetings and win that
50-lb package of foundation or whatever.

Here's a good way to test your ability to
count things. Go somewhere away from city
lights, and look at the stars. How many
can you see with the naked eye? 

Only about 3,000 according to folks who have
compared the sensitivity of the human
eye to the apparent brightness of stars.

Only 3,000. No way you guessed that low!


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## dickm (May 19, 2002)

Jim,
I told them you were clever. I had a few statistics courses which I have successfully managed to forget. I often wish I had kept the books though. It always impresses me.

When all is said and done, any colony that is signifigantly down in July will have problems. They may not be mite problems but that hive will be far from average and its' mite count won't mean much compared to a healthy hive because of the smaller # of bees. For the rest I think it's safe to compare between hives. I use sticky boards. I don't need to know the exact percentage to know that a hive with a lot of mites needs at least watching. It's a sort of percentage without a number if you follow. I get worried at around 15 a day in an average colony. What would your # be in an average, healthy, July colony?

The rest of you?

Dickm


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

Jon, your right about percentages or counts in regards to cluster or colony size. And Jim's comment about trends, and doing things always the same way is something to keep in mind..

In doing sugar shakes, I use 1/2 cup of bees. Not just putting some bees in a jar till it looks right. 1/2 cup all the time. The bees are always taken from a brood frame. And the test is done in the same manner everytime.

This 1/2 cup of bees normally has between 300 and 350 bees. This will give you a trend or at least a percentage of mites to bees within some sort of range of error.

I personally think the sticky board is good to get an idea what going on in the hive before and after treatments. But 10 mites on one sticky board and 100 on another means something different from sugar shaking two hives and having 10 in one and 100 in the next. Bottom boards do not account for colony size, while sugar shakes compare numbers to the same amount of bees, regardless of colony size.


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## NW IN Beekeeper (Jun 29, 2005)

Jim
[WHERE you take your sample clearly is going to
make a BIG difference, as you want to get
a consistent mix of foragers to house bees.
But as long as you are consistent, and you
take your readings over regular time intervals,
your trend-line graph is going to be valid,
as it will show the number of mites found
on that "mix" of bees, which was can assume
to contain many more house bees than foragers.]

Jon
[Even if you don't calculate the percentages, I think you have to use relative ratios or percentages or something along those lines to determine the magnitude of a mite problem.]


What I understand Jim to be saying is that a "baseline" conditions have to be established. Colony size will vary and it does have to be considered. 
A straight ratio or percentage can not be considered correct because there are hive dynamics. Higher populations could be because of newly hatched brood or joining hives. One causes lots of young bees, the other, maybe lots of old field bees. 

A drop in population can be because of disease or a healthy split. 

Younger bees may have more mites because of their duration and promity to newly hatched mites. Older bees may be too sickly to be a desirable host, or loose mites while foraging. 

These are things that you have to realize and consider into the equations as variables. How you weight them will depend on many factors exclusive to your apiary (flow, season, weather). 

Unfortunately only experience will help us decide what and to which magnitude to consider factors. 
Then I suppose we earn our beekeeping badges. 

Hope you're have fun Jon









Jeff


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## NW IN Beekeeper (Jun 29, 2005)

I wanted to add another point. 

A statistical analysis is not very practical.
Active apiaries mostly never will maintain static numbers, nor will age be a constant. Most of us don't have enough hours in the day to do a complete and proper analysis, and there is little worth in incomplete data.

But we do need stats as a rule of measure, we just have to be mindful of its accuracy and practical about its worth with or even against other apiary conditions. 

Jeff


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## dickm (May 19, 2002)

>>>Bottom boards do not account for colony size, while sugar shakes compare numbers to the same amount of bees, regardless of colony size.<<<

Something jars here. I guess it's that healthy colonies tend to be similar in size. While I agree sticky boards are not really that accurate, they reflect the entire hive. It's sort of like giving the entire hive a shake to see what dropped off, only no sugar, just time. I forget the formula but it's something like : 10 sticky board mites=10,000 in the hive. if the population of the hive is 50,000 then 10,000/50,000 gives one a percentage. 15 mites from a sugar roll give 15/350 and work out the percentage. Same measurement. Yours is more accurate, mine is quicker. Quicker means I'll actually do it!

Dickm


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

Dickm -- I've got to nitpick a little with your numbers. If 10 sticky board mites is indicative of 10,000 mites in a hive, how could you account for some of the counts in scientific studies suggesting, say, 150 as an economic threshold. That would be 150,000 mites! In one hive!?! How could it possibly support that many?

I think healthy colonies of the same types of bees at the same times of year under the same conditions (same temperatures, same number of queens, same amounts of room in the hives, etc) should have similar populations of bees, based on our selection and management techniques.

Jeff, statistical analyses don't require static numbers. They're mathematical techniques to derive some meaning from numbers. Is 50 mites on a sticky board after one week a problem? A mathematical approach (a statistical analysis, if you will) will help you answer that question.


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

Oh Boy! Now Jim will have to rework the percentages and possible variations taking into account ease or difficulty of method used and the probabilities of actual task accomplishments.

I think we could call in some of the "scale" crew and see if they have some fomulas and comments. They are hankerin' for some good counting. If we could combine this thread, the "scale" thread, and the "shotgun pattern" theorists, then were talking some fun. How about some pictures of the bottom boards along with one of the cluster size. With that, some may make it to spring...

Seriously Dick, with you assessment of hive strength, you would almost need a slide rule with increments, something say around 5,000 base. And then each person would have to become good at estimating hive bee populations. I think half cup bees, is a half cup bees. Thats easy.


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## dickm (May 19, 2002)

Jon,
I made up the number but 10 mites does have a reciprocal number in estimating. Obviously only a pecentage of mites ever sees the bottom board. Someone worked it out. I've seen so many that I couldn't count them and the hive was still going. They will at least look viable with a big mite load. Depends on when you are looking.

Dickm


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

Makes sense to me, Dickm. The more mites you have, the more mites drop. You just have to factor in the other variables, like temperature, recent treatments that might cause more to die and fall, etc.

If the hive has recently died because of the mites, though, wouldn't you expect to see many more mites than usual on a bottom board? If the bees all die, where would the mites that killed them end up?


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

Jim, thank you for that excellent analysis. A couple of items about which you are probably aware but didn't specifically mention and may not have included in your figuring and which should be considered by anyone counting mites:

In regard collecting a "representative" sample of bees. Mites are twice as likely to occur on house/nurse bees than say workers in a honey super, or foragers. They prefer nurse bees. This is not to say they won't spend some of their phoretic holiday on nectar gathering expeditions. I would expect if you got a truly representative sample of house, nurse, and forager bees that one would likely under-estimate the mite population, perhaps drastically so. Instructions for collecting a bee sample invariably recommend scooping nurse bees off a brood frame.

The other is that the sampling method (sugar shakes) are not 100 percent effective. You're going to miss some mites. According to the New Zealand manual for varroa control (which is rapidly becoming my mite-bible), a "quick" sugar shake will remove 70% of the mites on the bees and a prolonged shaking will remove 79.8% of the mites. For comparison, the traditional ether roll only removes 77% of the mites.

There are other methods that are more effective at removing mites, but the appeal of the sugar shake is that you can reuse the bees (so to speak).

Again, thanks for the analysis. I found it helpful and will make good use of it.

George-


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## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

Well, Santy came through at noon. Against my better judgement I entered an electronics store and exited with a Nikon digital camera. (The kids now have hope that I'll give up my 8-track)

Rather than just blaze away on my own, perhaps someone here has a suggestion about what they'd like to see as far as photos of this deadout being taken apart and examined. Assuming I can learn to use the camera and then upload pics in the next few days, what should I focus on? (heh, that's kind of a pun) It'll be kind of a CSI-Farmington thing.


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

Great! We love this sort of thing! Just check out the thread "Unclear (to me) cause of death" on the forum!

I'd like to see a few pictures of the bottom board and some of the comb, with or without dead bees on them. If you see anything different or unusual about the hive when you take it apart, please post photos of those, too. 

Congratulations on the new toy...I mean "camera."


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>If the bees all die, where would the mites that killed them end up?

Depends on the time of year Jon. This time of year yes, they'd end up on the bottom board, but during flying season they'd typically transfer to robbers cleaning out the hive and vanish.. so to speak.

I would like to clear up (or muddy further perhaps) one point about which there is a lot of confusion:

Colony size really isn't a consideration when contemplating mite infestations, unless you want to mess with it and figure how many mites there are on how many bees, then fine, go ahead but it's really not relevant or necessary IMHO.

Mite drop counts are largely independent of colony size so 10,000 mites in a hive are going to drop X mites per day when there is brood in the hive and Y mites per day when there is no brood in the hive, regardless of whether the bee population is 20,000 or 60,000. Of course, other factors come into play such as weather and temperature and whether there's a little brooding going on or none at all which will affect the drop rate, but it remains relatively constant within those 2 periods.

If you want to establish a percent infestation rate for your hive and compare it to some arbitrary economic threshold (hehe..) and all you got is mite drop counts, then you do need to know how many bees you got, but for purposes of deciding whether to treat or not, I believe you can very crudely estimate the bee population and do just fine. So take a guess. If you've got 30,000 bees and 5000 mites you've got an infestation rate of 17%. If you have 40,000 bees and 5000 mites, you've got a 12.5% infestation rate. Not a terribly big difference really, for being off by 10,000 bees. In either case I'd say you got a problem







So just make a good careful estimate, don't get too excited about it. Count frames of bees. It'll be fine.

I for one am happy (or not) knowing that I've got rougly X mites in my hive, regardless of how many bees there are in the box. Maybe I do a seat of the pants mental estimate without thinking about it, but it's nothing I spend much time thinking about. It doesn't really make any difference if it's a nuc or a 2 deep hive.

When sampling mites with a sugar shake, you're establishing a percent infestation level directly and the only time you need to estimate the colony size is if you want to know how many mites are in your hive, rather than being satisfied with the percent infestation rate. Why would you want to know how many mites are in your hive if you already know that 10% of your bees have phoretic mites on them? Does it really matter if you have 30,000 bees in your hive or 60,000 bees?

The other thing to remember is that when there is brood in your hive, upwards of 60% of the mites in your hive are in cells breeding so if you do a sugar roll in June on 100 bees and find 10 mites and figure you've got an infestation rate of 10%, think again. That 10% represents phoretic mites only or about 1/3 of your population. The vast majority of mites are making babies and didn't get sampled. 

People have been telling me for months that absolute numbers aren't important, or meaningful, in and of themselves. You need to look at the rates of change. What were the counts last week? 2 weeks ago? Last month? How are they changing? They told me it was important, and I believed them. I believe them more than ever now. What's this interest all of a sudden on how many bees are in a hive?

George-


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

>>Colony size really isn't a consideration when contemplating mite infestations, unless you want to mess with it and figure how many mites there are on how many bees, then fine, go ahead but it's really not relevant or necessary IMHO.

Did you read the earlier questions, George? I'll repeat: you count 50 mites on a sticky board left for one week on a hive. Is your mite load a problem? Is it a problem requiring treatment if your colony is a 2-queen system with 75,000 bees? Is it a problem if the same drop occurred from a hive less than two weeks old started from a package?

I think there is a big difference. In the hive with 75,000 bees, I would delay treating until the problem gets worse (if it does). In the other, I would probably treat right now.

>>Depends on the time of year Jon. This time of year yes, they'd end up on the bottom board, but during flying season they'd typically transfer to robbers cleaning out the hive and vanish.. so to speak.

On one of the other threads, very few if any mites appeared in the photos of "stuff" taken from the bottom board, the hive had died at this time of year, yet several people were arguing that mites killed the hive. 

If mite populations reach the levels people talk about (10,000 mites or more per hive), most of those mites attach to robbers and move? I'm not denying it could happen, but does it? I would expect to see a domino effect of hives crashing then, radiating away from the first hive that died from mites.


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>Did you read the earlier questions, George? I'll repeat: you count 50 mites on a sticky board left for one week on a hive. Is your mite load a problem?

It's a meaningless exercise and a meaningless number without additional information which would include previous counts from prior weeks (or is that prior counts from previous weeks?) as well as the time of year, general colony health, and an estimate of the amount of brood. I am most interested in the rate of population growth. I think I said that in a previous message









But I can play too. 50 mites a week is 7 mites a day and that's not a panic level number for me. In the case of the 2 week old package, it's a disturbing number. If left untreated that package probably won't make it through the winter. Would I treat it? No. I'd do another drop count next week.

>On one of the other threads, very few if any mites appeared in the photos of "stuff" taken from the bottom board

I for one did not see a picture of the bottom board. I saw an out of focus picture of some stuff thinly spread on a piece of paper that supposedly came from the bottom board. I saw dead bees on the inner cover. I did not see a single mite.

>If mite populations reach the levels people talk about (10,000 mites or more per hive), most of those mites attach to robbers and move? I'm not denying it could happen, but does it?

Yes, it can and does happen, all the time. Robbing of dead and dying hives, and open feeding are the primary means by which mites "get around". Drifting of workers and drones is another way. You often sees a huge explosion in mite populations in late summer and early fall and it's generally attributed to immigration, though there are other reasons why drops usually increase substantially anyways when brood rearing is slacking off.

>I would expect to see a domino effect of hives crashing then, radiating away from the first hive that died from mites.

Interesting idea. Could happen I suppose, but I don't think there's an inverse square law at work. The hive that got robbed out could be a mile away in a tree.

George-


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## dickm (May 19, 2002)

Coyote,
Whats this business of getting presents? Santa doesn't come earlier to you outlanders. Wrap it up and wait for Christmas!

Jon,
>>If the bees all die, where would the mites that killed them end up?<<

In mite hell I hope. In reality a soggy mass of bees and a bottom board covered in debris is a poor place to look for something that small. And what with the tears, the deep emotion and the funeral procession ... it's hard to concentrate.

OK. I'm going to say this one more time.







The mite killed hive had it's demise a long while back. Back when the winter bees were being produced in Aug. The mites may have dissapeared because of the absence of brood and other hosts. They don't have to be in the hive when it is found dead. The poor winter bees are there for counting if counting is your need. So is the small cluster. I know how scientists like to count weigh and measure things.










Dickm


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

I looked in my deadout this afternoon. The cluster was small, they dwindled considerably since the last time I looked at them in early November. Had I collected all the bees there might have been 3-5 cups. A thousand bees? More? I'll have to look again to be sure.

They didn't starve, they were clustered on open honey in the top deep, surrounded by capped honey. I pulled 4-5 frames to look. There was no brood in the hive at all and many of the bees had fallen onto the top bars of the bottom deep and onto the bottom board. There was about a softball sized cluster of bees still on the combs. The bottom board was LITTERED with mites, and dead bees. Thousands of mites, all in a football sized area directly under the cluster.

Some of the bees looked greasy like they'd gotten honey on them in the frenzy to feed and stay clustered and warm. I wonder if besides varroa they also had tracheal mites?

I sealed the hive back up.

The good news is that my other hives are all still alive









George-


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

>>The mite killed hive had it's demise a long while back. Back when the winter bees were being produced in Aug. The mites may have dissapeared because of the absence of brood and other hosts. They don't have to be in the hive when it is found dead.

Where would they go, or maybe more correctly, how would they disappear? Do they recognize that their current host is failing and leave? Do they die without brood? If they're all dead, where do their carcasses go?

Does this suggest a way to control mites? Eliminate the brood, and the mites disappear. I've heard a couple beekeepers claim that simply overwintering hives reduces Varroa loads to the point they never have to treat. Anyone have comments along that line?


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>Where would they go, or maybe more correctly, how would they disappear? Do they recognize that their current host is failing and leave?

They might realize their host colony is history and hitch rides on robbing bees. One thing that might "discourage" the mites is lack of breeding opportunities. Many dying hives exhibit brood diseases that would make them unnattractive to mites. Hives that are dying out typically get robbed out and then starve. In a robbed out deadout there might not be many mites left at all.

>Do they die without brood? If they're all dead, where do their carcasses go?

Mites can live on bees for months but they can't last much more than a couple of days on their own. They can't reproduce without brood.

>Does this suggest a way to control mites? Eliminate the brood, and the mites disappear.

Breaking the mites brood cycle by caging the queen or requeening is a legitimate (and well known) method of controlling mites. It deprives them of an opportunity to breed and done at the right time, can temporarily stall their population growth. For a while. Combined with a treatment, it can be quite effective.

I'm currently researching a method of mite control involving splitting hives that was originally developed in Vietnam as a mite control method involving breaking the brood cycle and drone comb trapping. Dutch researchers have reportedly maintained a number of hives for a number of years without other treatments.

>I've heard a couple beekeepers claim that simply overwintering hives reduces Varroa loads to the point they never have to treat.

Mites can live for months on bees without breeding. It is estimate that mite populations shrink by 10% per month during periods of prolonged broodlessness. Honeybee colonies are typically only broodless for a few months in late fall and early winter. Expecting your mites to die off over the winter is wishful thinking. If that were not the case, we wouldn't have a mite problem, would we?

George-


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## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

Pay no attention to the man fumbling about trying to figure out how to post a link to pictures....

http://photobucket.com/albums/c285/barrydigman/ 

Lemme see if that worked....

At any rate, mites. Lots and lots of mites.

[ December 23, 2005, 07:34 PM: Message edited by: coyote ]


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

That is EXACLTLY what I saw when I looked in the top of my deadout.. Empty..


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>At any rate, mites. Lots and lots of mites.

Aye... they didn't starve. I don't see a lot of bees, it looks a lot like my deadout. Their numbers dwindled, they couldn't maintain sufficient numbers to cluster and stay warm. They froze to death on top of honey.

Sigh.


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## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

ok, I managed to upload over 50 shots. Diagnosis? Seems like mites that took hold earlier in the year, and SHOULD HAVE BEEN addressed, then reduced the colony strength to a point where it could not maintain temperature is the leading candidate at this point. No apparent robbing of the hive either, as the medium is packed and several frames in the deeps have capped honey.


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## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

> Whats this business of getting presents? Santa doesn't come earlier to you outlanders. Wrap it up and wait for Christmas!


I figured we'd better get some practice with it if we wanted to use it on Christmas morning. This has been a wierd one anyway. I think the news video of people getting trampled in the WalMart stampedes pretty much did it for me. But that's a Tailgater thread, and it's almost Christmas. Blessings.


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## SilverFox (Apr 25, 2003)

WALLY-WORLD 

[ December 23, 2005, 10:44 PM: Message edited by: SilverFox ]


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## db_land (Aug 29, 2003)

Hi coyote,
Sorry about your loss - good job on the pictures. I agree with you guys that this one probably died because of varroa mites. Another, albeit slight, possibility is that it became queenless - did you find the queen clustering with the workers? Also, from the pics it looks like significant mold on some of the comb? Is this a high moisture environment? I wouldn't think so in NM; but if not mold, what is it?


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## db_land (Aug 29, 2003)

Jon,
The mass migration of mites via robber bees is an assumption, not necessarily a fact. I know most beeks and varroa mite researchers make this assumption and even blame their mite problems on other beeks management (or lack thereof) practices. I have never found scientific research specifically addressing or quantifying mite migration. It seems logical that a few mites move between hives via drifting/robbing bees, but is the immigrant varroa count high enough to have an immediate impact on hive health? I doubt it.


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>Also, from the pics it looks like significant mold on some of the comb?

Mine look like that. Without a heat source (bees) you're going to get mold. It's a humid environment and mold is only kept in-check by the constant attention of bees. Remove the bees, you'll get mold.

>The mass migration of mites via robber bees is an assumption, not necessarily a fact.

I disagree. It's been a strong assertion voiced by many different researchers many times. The same applies to tracheal mites. How do you think these buggers get around in the first place? Please don't say they spontaneously generate!

They can't fly, they can't walk across country and if they could walk any distance they can't live without bees to feed on long enough to get very far. Tracheal mites just sit around waving their little arms in the air waiting to snag the hairs of a passing bee. Varroa are little different, but they can at least jump. I'll grant that almost every source of bees now has an insipient mite population to start with, but that wasn't always the case. If you choose to ignore immigration as a signficant source of mites, you've got your head in the sand









>is the immigrant varroa count high enough to have an immediate impact on hive health? I doubt it.

If your borderline mite population is bolstered with 4-5000 immigrant mites in early fall, I suggest your hive will be dead by spring. How do you spell "immediate"?

George-


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## dickm (May 19, 2002)

Let's factor in something else. A mite drop of 10 a day isn't considered too bad to kill a hive. In a month that's 310. Since none I know checks very closely at this time of year those 310 plus all the mites on the bees that died and were in the brood a month ago ... are on the bottom board of the dead hive. If you see a 1,000 mites in a deadout, that would probably be a load the hive could carry in normal times. I'm not saying mites didn't kill the hive, just that the counting exercise may not mean anything much. Let's gas a healthy hive and count mites. Coyote, how many more hives do you have? Nice Pix by the way. Sorry for the loss.

Dickm


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## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

> possibility is that it became queenless


I thought that might be a possibility too. Didn't see the queen, but I wonder if she could have been taken out with the trash if she died while the colonly was still alive. I'll look closer at the trash heap.



> significant mold on some of the comb? Is this a high moisture environment?


Very low humidity here, typically in the teens.



> just that the counting exercise may not mean anything much


Makes sense if there's no control hive to compare it with. The bottom board contains an accumulation of mites from who-knows-how-long. 



> how many more hives do you have?


About 18 more strung out around the county. This one happened to be at my house with another one.


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>Let's factor in something else. A mite drop of 10 a day isn't considered too bad to kill a hive.

You really can't just throw out a number without considering the time of year. 10 a day in June is nothing to write home about. 10 a day in early winter is quite something else.

I think a lot of mite-killed hives probably die off by dwindling. Mite populations peak in early fall when the over-wintering bees are emerging. Going into winter with short-lived bees ain't going to cut it.


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## MountainCamp (Apr 12, 2002)

=I think a lot of mite-killed hives probably die off by dwindling. Mite populations peak in early fall when the over-wintering bees are emerging. Going into winter with short-lived bees ain't going to cut it.

George, this is why I feed light syrup long and hard in the fall vs. heavy syrup. I add my oils to inhibit mite reproduction and add additional younger bees to the winter cluster. I want as many bees as possible going into winter because the younger bees are what will bring the colony through winter. I leave enough food on the hive, I wrap, I feed and feed, then feed more, then I setup the granular sugar for a belt and suspenders approach. I also start feeding again toward the end of February to boost the population some. I am able to make up early season splits to expand or replace loses, and control swarming.


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>this is why I feed light syrup long and hard in the fall vs. heavy syrup.

Well, if that works for you, good. The principle is sound, but the practice... I just hate to think that is what beekeeping has come to!

Even feeding light syrup to spur brooding in the fall, if your mite loads are high, you're just raising more mites and weakened bees when you don't need them, but getting hives through the winter, by almost any means, is probably worth it.

Coyote: Looking at some other pictures, I see definite signs of PMS- the dead emerging bees with tongues sticking out, punctured cappings.

Sigh. How do you like your camera?


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## dickm (May 19, 2002)

I'm in a mixed mood. Found most of my hives enjoying a little exercise. In one yard I found a more inactive hive had a cluster on 2 frames, near the top in the southwest side of the hive. [warmest]. I took the several frames and moved them to the lower super, centered, And put the remaining honey over them. I don't expect them to make it. Too small a cluster, but maybe. They were definitely going to starve in their original location.

In my more Northern yard I found the bees quiet except for one colony. They were busy. The hive next door was a dead out. A nice big Carnie hive it was. Plenty of bees with the cluster in the center and a full super of honey above it. From my notes: The mite count on 8/20 [sticky board] was 70. I treated with O/A. On 9/24 the count was 80. I treated with O/A. On 9/27 the count was 20. I treated with O/A I treated no further. There had been no dwindling. There was no sign of disease. There was maybe 20 cells of brood dead in the cells probably chilled. No other brood. I think I killed them.

On all my hives I installed a top [Miller] feeder which I leave on. In the fall I add on top of that a slab of homosote with a 3" hole in the center to absorb water. Then I prop up the outer [telescoping] cover for ventilation. This is one hive where I neglected to do that. It was closed tight and one of the frames in the first deep was covered in mold. My diagnosis id humidity. I feel so dumb. 

Then I decided to move the super of stores to the hive next door. This was the active hive. I had no gloves but did put a veil on without securing it. When I popped the cover, the top of the hive was swarming with bees. It had hefted pretty good so I wonder what they were doing. By the time I gave them the extra super, and got things together, I had been stung on each hand. Also had a few investigating the inside of the veil. Brought 10 into the house. What a surprise to find them so active! I wonder what they thought they were doing. Maybe I saved them too.

My hands are nice and warm tonight. Wish you all a merry Christmas!

Dickm


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## PA Pete (Feb 2, 2005)

Nice story Dick, but sorry to hear about your dead-out  

I was sitting by my two hives today watching them bringing in pollen. Given there isn't any nectar about, I figured at some point one might have a problem with me sitting so close to the hive. Sure enough, one came over and started head-butting me. I jumped up and left, but thought fondly (weird, I know) about that left-over itchiness I'm sure you're feeling now in your hands. Guess I'll have more of that soon enough (or I could always not run away when they start head butting)  

-Pete


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## MountainCamp (Apr 12, 2002)

>Well, if that works for you, good. The principle is sound, but the practice... I just hate to think that is what beekeeping has come to!

Come to what? I have not used anything in my hives except spearmint and wintergreen oils for over 8 years, except an OA trickle treatment last fall. My hive loses last year were 1 of 22. So far this year Ive lost (1) out of 43 colonies that was queenless in late summer and I let them requeen themselves. They never built up a good population. 
There is still a lot of winter left to come, but we have already seen temps in the -10F range, so Tracheal mites are not a problem as they are holding cluster. They have populations able to produce enough heat to survive so far. 
From what I have been hearing and reading, I think that I am way ahead of the game.


>Even feeding light syrup to spur brooding in the fall, if your mite loads are high, you're just raising more mites and weakened bees when you don't need them, but getting hives through the winter, by almost any means, is probably worth it.

Spearmint and wintergreen oils inhibit the reproduction of the mites. I have colonies that I can trace back over 7 years. Once again, I think that I am way ahead of the game.

[ December 24, 2005, 06:47 PM: Message edited by: MountainCamp ]


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>From what I have been hearing and reading, I think that I am way ahead of the game.

I would agree. I was really referring to the added time, effort, and money spent feeding (and treating) bees when ideally, they should be able to take care of themselves.

Cheers, and Merry Christmas!


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## MountainCamp (Apr 12, 2002)

We have altered their normal environment and range of distribution.
Before VM, winter loses ranged up to 50%, depending on where they were wintered and how well prepared. 
Things have not changed all that much.

Merry Christmas -


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## Robert Hawkins (May 27, 2005)

<Spearmint and wintergreen oils inhibit the reproduction of the mites.>

Are we talking trachial mites or varroa mites. When you say more brood just gives the mites a place to increase, that's varroa. Spearmint and wintergreen havve no effect on varroa mites. so when you say that the principle is sound, you're both wrong. Or...

Obviously MountainCamp knows something I don't know. He has used spearmint and wintergreen on varroa mites successfully for seven years????

Talk to us Camp.

Hawk


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## MountainCamp (Apr 12, 2002)

I posted my notes from the last 10 years not long ago with another topic. I have many hives that I can trace back at least 7 years. I have not used Aspitan or checkmite in over 8 years.

There have been a number of studies done that show that both spearmint, and wintergreen oils, as well as others inhibit mite reproduction and reduce the overall mite load in a hive.

That said, I believe that there is no quick fix or one size fits all solution to mites and successfully managing ones hives. I have worked from the view point that mites adversely affect the individual bee and the colony as a whole. If mites reduce the lifespan of a bee and the colonys overall numbers because of this, then increasing the number of young bees going into winter and reducing the ratio of mites to bees and their effect, improves the hives overall health.


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## MountainCamp (Apr 12, 2002)

I made an observation hive up this year for a friend. I took 2 frames of bees and brood and placed them in the observation hive. They raised their own queen and are doing well. I checked this hive out a few weeks ago, and after a 30 minute inspection of the bees, I could not find a mite.
I went into this winter with 43 hives. I have lost (1) and that hive basically died this August when it went queenless.
I don't do and never have done a mite count.
It would not really change what I do anyway. 
I have no plans on using commercial mite products.
I have seen mites from time to time on bottom boards, I have seen them in a few drone cells, but I am not losing hives from them at any great rate.

[ December 25, 2005, 03:50 PM: Message edited by: MountainCamp ]


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

Great photos, Coyote! Again, sorry to hear and see a hive go down. I agree with others -- Varroa is the main culprit in this loss.

I'm not denying that Varroa is a problem. I keep saying that. What I'm trying to emphasize is that I wouldn't blame Varroa without evidence. I repeat, without evidence, I would not blame Varroa. Coyote's hive clearly shows evidence of mites.

I still have a problem understanding how all or even most signs of mites could vanish from a hive killed by mites. I agree that some of the mites could hitch rides on robbers and emigrate. But not all. Like others have pointed out, mites can only live a very short time without a living host. Where do the mite carcasses go? And, can ALL of the surviving mites find robbers before the mites die from lack of hosts?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

When I've lost hives to Varroa, there have always been tens of thousands of dead Varroa on the bottom board.


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## tony350i (Jul 29, 2005)

Hello coyote,

Sorry about yours loss to the v mites, do you think this would have happened if your bees were on small/natural cell.

Tony


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## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

> Sorry about yours loss to the v mites, do you think this would have happened if your bees were on small/natural cell.


Good question. I wish I knew the answer. 
This particular hive began as a captured swarm. It just completed it's 4th summer. It's located at my house in the middle of town. After I set it up, I chose to leave it pretty much alone. I fed it the first fall, but in subsequent years it had plenty of stores. I wintered it with the two deeps and a medium full of honey. This summer was the first time it swarmed. If you look at the photos, you'll notice there were frames missing in what would have been the bottom hive body. For the life of me I can't remember why, but when I would inspect it seemed that things were going so well that I just left it that way.

I learned a lot from that hive (but apparently not enough!). What would I do differently? Well, keep better notes. I suspect that my "it seems normal" approach may have been overridden by a written record of what was really normal for that particular hive. I don't use chemicals, but probably would have tried some emergency treatment had I recognized the mite load for what it was. I never requeened, and the hive remained gentle throughout it's existance.
My wife is really upset about it. She wouldn't get very close to it, but she loved the fact that it was there and the bees were "happy" in her yard. She liked watching them and hearing them. 
The funny thing is I've lost other hives because of bears, bad queens, buying from shysters, etc. but this particular hive seemed kind of special for some reason. Like a good hunting dog or a mouser. But like the optimistic farmers around here say, "We've had two good years....one back in '47 and next year."


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## carbide (Nov 21, 2004)

Question: What do you do with the remains of the hive at this time of the year?

Do you let it sit in the yard until springtime and then use the comb for other hives? Do you remove the frames and store them inside to be used next year in other hives? Do you extract the honey that's left in the frames? What do you do with the honey if you extract it? Do you take the honey frames and make up a filled hive body to place on top of a light hive that may need a little extra to make it through the winter?

The reason I'm asking, is I have had the same thing happen to eight of my hives, which I discovered on Christmas day. During the last three months I've been remodeling and then moving into a different house and I just did not have the time to do much with my bees. I did manage to harvest what little honey I had on the hives and then use Checkmite in them but I was told by the state inspector that we had mites that were resistant to it. I guess the mites in my hives fit that category.

After seeing the pictures that coyote posted it was just like looking into my own hives all over again. What do I do now with this empty equipment?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

It's cold enough where I live to leave it set. If there's honey, you might want to close it up tight enough to keep out the bees. I'd always close it up tight enough to keep out the mice. There aren't any wax moths this time of year, here. If you live in a warmer climate you might have to worry about the wax moths.


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## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

> Question: What do you do with the remains of the hive at this time of the year?


Initially I just buttoned it up real tight, but the weather has changed such that the other hives are flying like it's summer so now I've opened it up and let them rob it. The nights are in the 20's, days pushing 50. Hopefully that will suppress some of the transmission of nasty things. 
Interesting note...I set a super in a yard with 5 hives, 3 Russians, 1 Italian and 1 mutt. The little bolsheviks fly at lower temperatures and higher wind velocity than the others. When robbing, the bees are meticulous about the pattern they follow in opening the cells. It's not random like I've seen in the summer; they open only one row at a time starting from the edge and work toward the center. I'm wondering if this is a function of the difficulty of opening cold wax cappings vs. warmer and more pliable ones in the summer, and that they figured out that this pattern was easier than a random attack. Pretty cool to watch them do it this way.

[ December 28, 2005, 03:02 PM: Message edited by: coyote ]


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