What did you do in your Apiary/Bee yard today?

[Terri Yaki]

I know that anti-biotics can be bought at fish stores without 'scripts and preppers know it. When I had fish, I used get Tetracycline for them when they got infected but it looks like that's been discontinued since then. How are anti-biotics applied to bees?

Not anymore.  With the new regulations, all antibiotics require prescription, even veterinary ones.  None are available over the counter anymore, even at pet stores and farm stores.

Are you sure about that? This looks like they're good to go unless I'm missing something. I added it to a cart and it looks like I could order stuff.

https://thefishantibiotics.com/collections/fish-antibiotics

[The15thMember]

I haven't been able to order any antibiotics from my usual veterinary channels since the new regs., but I've never seen that website before.  If it works, let me know. 

[Lesgold]

Made a couple of splits today using a Snelgrove board. A few hives were also inspected with new screened bottom boards put in place. Spring buildup has been slow due to dry weather. Plenty of pollen coming in and just a touch of nectar. In a couple of hives, queens were being superseded. Inspected hives generally had between 6 and 10 frames of brood.

[Bill Murray]

Just get a VFD from the vet and take it to the feed store. Also they make a EFB test kit if your not sure what your looking at I think about 16.00 USD. Here is vitas info on them.
https://www.vita-europe.com/beehealth/products/efb-diagnostic-test-kit/

[BeeMaster2]

About a week ago Judy saw a swarm take off from our observation hive. Not a good thing this time of year. 2 days later she found the queen laying egg. Surprise, surprise. Then she saw mites on bees in the observation hive and showed them to me. I have never seen mites on bees in the observation hive before this. I checked the drawers at the bottom of the hive and there were a lot of mites. I cracked the hive ones and slid a sheet of Apivar in the hive. Yesterday I pulled the drawers out and the pictures below show the results. Every one of those dots are a mites. We are hoping they can recover/ increase their numbers before winter.
We closed in the patio where the observation hive is so we don?t have to worry about them freezing this anymore. We can also feed them all winter.

[Terri Yaki]

Now that's what I'd call 'an infestation'. Hope you got it licked.

[BeeMaster2]

It will take three weeks to get all of the mites that are in the brood cells. When they are capped they are protected from the apivar.
Jim Altmiller

[jtcmedic]

Did some splits, will put queen cells in tomorrow

[Terri Yaki]

I went through my hives today and have the videos up. The nuc has so few bees in it that I don't see how they can make it through the winter. I expected to see more in the swarm hive too but I don't know what to expect. I'll take any help I can get on what to do with them. For some reason, my camera shut down on me while I was filming Part I so that's what happened there.

Thanks

Nuc HIve

https://rumble.com/v5fk31p-september-19-2024-nuc-hive-inspection.html

Swarm Hive Part I

https://rumble.com/v5fjtsl-september-19-2020-swarm-hive-inspection-part-i.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp

Part II

https://rumble.com/v5fjydf-september-19-2024-swarm-hive-inspection-part-ii.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp

[The15thMember]

I think that swarm hive is looking pretty good.  It's not abnormal to see nectar in the bottom box as the brood nest condenses.  If you are wanting to get them to fill that second box, then I'd keep feeding them.  I agree the nuc is looking pretty small.  If they hadn't had that bout of EFB, I'd just combine them with the big hive.  How did their little bit of brood look?  Did it seem healthy?   

I couldn't really see on the video, but does your nuc inner cover have a notch in it?  Do you have that closed?  Because that top entrance right there at your feed is a recipe for robbing if that notch is open.  Same thing on the big hive, be sure your telescoping top is pulled back so that notch isn't open, because you have those stickies up there. 

[Terri Yaki]

Thanks, I was scared that my swarm hive was short on numbers. Swarm hive has top and bottom entrance and they seem to like it. Yellow jackets haven't come near the top one, only eye up the bottom one...for now. Up until now, I was feeding above the inner cover so closing that upper entrance with the lid wasn't possible but I've pulled that box off and can do it now. The nuc only has the bottom entrance with my robbing tunnel on the front of it. I forgot about it until I was done filming but I put the medium super on top of the swarm hive for them to finish capping. Things are getting capped pretty well right now.

Oh, and all of the brood and larvae looked good.

[The15thMember]

Okay, sounds good.  Since you have got that medium too, then what I might be inclined to do is give them the fullest best frames from between the two supers; just pick whichever ones are most drawn/most filled and put them in the deep.  Or, if you'd prefer, you could just see what they get capped and then leave them with the pick of the lot when you condense them down for winter.  How are you planning to overwinter them, 1 deep, 2 deeps, or 1 deep/1 medium?  That will dictate somewhat what frames you leave them, since the deep frames won't fit in the medium box.   

[Terri Yaki]

I'm still figuring out how they'll be configured. Is there any downside to leaving all of the honey on them? Other than the small hive dying and losing any honey that's on them. My nuc boxes are deeps so I can pull the five best frames of the deep super for them and put empty frames in in their place. And I do have a box of fondant on the way through my club as well.

[The15thMember]

Is there any downside to leaving all of the honey on them?

The downside is that they will have trouble keeping a larger space warm.  The typical advice is to get the bees into the smallest configuration possible that still fits the population and the stores they'll need to overwinter successfully.  I typically overwinter in 2 mediums in my climate, but you'll need a little bit more honey than me, so you may be better off in a deep/medium or even 2 deeps depending on how things shape up with your frames. 

My nuc boxes are deeps so I can pull the five best frames of the deep super for them and put empty frames in in their place. And I do have a box of fondant on the way through my club as well.

Good, the nuc may need that fondant (if it survives long enough).  I wouldn't replace any frames you pull from the swarm hive for the nuc with fully blank foundation.  The bees will never get that drawn at this time of year.  Drawn blanks would be fine though. 

[Bill Murray]

Did some splits, will put queen cells in tomorrow.

Lucky you. I am just getting Drones back in the hives. I tried last month for queens to no avail. Plenty of queens not much mating.

[beesnweeds]

The downside is that they will have trouble keeping a larger space warm. 

In the northeast as long as the supers are full you can leave several with no problems.  I left 3 in the past.  The problem is extracting the honey in the spring if its crystalized.

https://www.honeybeesuite.com/physics-for-beekeepers-temperature-in-the-hive/

[The15thMember]

I did fall brood nest inspections on another two colonies today.  It was pretty hot out, and I was dodging robbers the whole time.  The one colony had a super high mite count, 18.5%!    Let's see, where did I put that FormicPro. . . . 

[Lesgold]

Checked a hive that had queen cells just over three weeks ago. The hive wasn?t crying and cells in the brood box were polished. Looks like there may be a young queen nearly  ready to lay. Didn?t want to stay in there long. Hopefully she will be up and racing in a few days. Inspected a couple of hives that were split with the Snelgrove board. They both had capped queen cells that should hatch in about a week.

[NigelP]

Removed the 5 gallon feeders off my hives, some literally could not cram any more stores in. All nice and heavy. A couple of nucs are low in numbers, but nothing I can do about that. They will have to take their chances over winter.
Also paid all my site owners their rent.
Season almost over.

[Bob Wilson]

I bought a few last pieces of wood to finish making a plywood countertop table in the workshop, mostly for honey harvesting.