Inspection Report - July - Aug 2020

OVERVIEW

I have combined the last three inspections in July and August as they were related. All three trips were to correct some issues that I had seen happening, and to administer summer mite treatments.

COLONY 1 - West Facing

Several things happened with the West Facing colony that needed immediate attention.

A massive die-off. Pesticides were suspected
Mite count was high

MASSIVE DIE-OFF

Between my mid-July visit, and the early August visit, there was a massive die-off of the population. In the following image, you’ll see a large number of bees at the entrance. This is not normal and suggests something bad happened in the week between inspections.

I took a sample of the bees for testing, and did not see any signs of disease or parasites that may have caused this. On the next inspection, the colony was still smaller, but seemed to be growing. I can only surmise that this was a one-time inadvertent killing by pesticides.

MITE COUNT HIGH

I did a test and found that the varroa mite count was approaching levels that needed to be dealt with. As such I added treatments each week for two weeks. This seems to have reduced the mites in the colony and sets them up nicely for winter.

COLONY 2 - North Facing

This is our growing colony added this year. Not much is needed for them other than general maintenence and feeding. Two things were done

Add new box
Treat for mites

ADD NEW BOX

Because this colony has been struggling slightly to build numbers, and due to the spring rain, the North colony did not build honey as expected. As such, I made the decision to take a box off the West colony and add it to the North colony.

This does a couple things. First it increases the survival likelihood of the North colony by adding much needed food reserves for the winter.

Second, it reduces the space that the West colony has, and thus encourages them to build into the boxes there now. What this means is that the colony won’t have to spend a lot of resources to fill a lot of empty space, thus reducing the work needed in the fall.

TREAT FOR MITES

I treated the North colony for mites as well. This was the same process as the West colony and required one treatment, for two weeks. This will be the first step in the mite treatments going into Fall. I will be back soon with the winter treatments in September.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Going forward, it will be imperative to continue feeding. Both colonies will need medicated sugar water until cold temps start to hit. The plan will be to feed on each inspection visit until then.

Inspection Report - JULY/AUG 2020