# Hello Post from Nova Scotia



## d.frizzell (Aug 27, 2012)

Hi,
I am a small scale hobby beekeeper (8 hives). I live on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Until very recently we had no varroa mite here on the island, however that has changed due to hives from other parts introduced to pollinate blueberry fields. So 2 years ago I came across Michael Bush's great website and I started with foundationless. I didn't have mites in my hives but I want to be prepared. I have some questions that I will post later.
Donna Frizzell
Cape Breton, Nova Scotia


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

Hi Donna,

There are a few beekeepers from NS here. I have 13 colonies in top bar hives and 8 frame langs in downtown Halifax, Dartmouth and in Musquodoboit Harbour. I'm in my third season here. I have been using a mix of foundationless, small cell foundation and foundation strips. It's interesting to hear your thoughts about mites in CB, as many have guessed that they are there, and I had not heard for sure from a Cape Bretoner. Last year, 250 hives were brought down from CB and sold out of Halifax. People down here guessed that they had mites.

Good to have you on the forum,

Adam


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## d.frizzell (Aug 27, 2012)

Hello Adam,
Nice to hear from you and know that a few others here in Nova Scotia are doing small cell. I am not quite there yet but next year I plan to cull all LC foundation (from my honey supers) and use SC foundation or foundationless. My bees are definitely smaller. I have all 10 frame langs. I don't know who here on CB would have that many hives to sell - the one commercial beekeeper is now more or less retired. There are definitely mites here now, I don't have any in my hives, but most on the island do now. I definitely won't be using treatments, so I hope my SC efforts will be successfull. If you have a small group down in Halifax maybe we could get together and have Michael Bush speak up there sometime.


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## Tiwilager (Mar 13, 2012)

Hello!
I'm from Halifax as well!
I don't have anything to say really, just get excited when I see people from the area.


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## dan men (Jun 27, 2012)

on the subject varrola i been doing some studying and I'm debating in be-twin starting out by following the principles of the langs method of operating and the natural bee way it seems that the different results between both from Watt i understood is the langs way you create more bee's and honey, the natural way you create less bee's and honey but the hive seems to be a way stronger colonie against mites not sure if this is just due to the method or just the fact that the bee's are always falling down on the screen and possibly banging the mites off


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