It's Freezing

Cold weather in the UK in December isn't really newsworthy, I know. However it's something new for my bees so I felt it blogworthy. Last night the temperature in Kingston-Upon-Hull hit zero degrees celcius and the wildlife pond in the middle of the garden froze. It's still frozen and I expect it'll remain so for a long time. The other one in the corner wasn't iced over today but I don't think I'll be hopping in to test the temperature anytime soon.

Frozen pond

As I said this is the first winter for my bees. Given the normal lifespan of a bee the only bee in a colony likely to live through more than one winter is the Queen but both of mine were born this year so it's a first for them too. Today I had a look under the hives with my trusty BeeSpy 3000 but there wasn't really much to see. So I went back inside and returned with my stethoscope. Doesn't everyone have a stethoscope? Putting this to the hive wall I was able to hear the bees merrily buzzing inside. They sounded a happy bunch and knowing they're still alive makes me a happy chap too. Of course there's a lot can happen between now and Spring and a lot of colonies don't make it so fingers crossed.

Something else I've just had to do is check the levels of varroa in the hives. I previously treated the mites with a course of Apilife Var in October but no treatment gets rid of all of them and in the hives of the complacent beekeeper they can rebuild their population. So first thing to do was check the numbers mites still in the hives. Both hives have wire mesh floors so mites that fall, or die drop out of the hive. To check the number of mites we monitor the number of them that fall out. Because beekeepers like to name things this is called "mite fall" fairly self explanatory name really. To measure mite fall you place something sticky under the hive and, hopefully, when a mite falls through wire mesh floor it'll be stuck there when you come to count them later. I used greaseproof paper sellotaped to correx boards and smeared with petroleum jelly.

Setting a trap for Varroa Destructor

After a few days with the sticky paper in place there were no mites visible on them at all. That doesn't mean there's no Varroa in the hives, it just means there's probably not enough of them at present to need further treatment. If there had been the treatment would have been to drizzle the bees with a 3.2% Oxacylic Acid solution. 5ml of the stuff between each frame where the bees are. Sounds pretty harsh pouring acid onto your bees doesn't it? It kills something like 97% of the mites, and whilst it has a negative effect on the bees too it's believed to be far less harmful than the impact of the Varroa themselves.