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Thanks for the detailed reply Alistair, I was surprised by the varroa count being so high. A little history - I lost both my hives last season, it seems this was the case for many bee keepers. I collected a small swarm mid 12th October. After checking several times I was unable to locate the queen? Bolstered the hive with a new queen and five frames of brood and accompanying bees as well as 4 strips of Bayvarol on the 20th Oct. 23 Oct placed a sticky board in for 3 days and had 61 varroa. Placed another sticky board for another 3 days and had 51 varroa count. 2 Nov 3rd sticky board but this time a coreflute with cooking oil spray for 1 week. The board was very clean so not sure if the bees cleaned the spray off but there was only a 5 varroa count. Lots of eggs and brood. Had an AFB inspection and by late Dec queen went AWOL. There was no eggs or larvae but still plenty of brood yet to emerge. 30 Dec still no queen to be found (may have missed her or she was in the mating period) All brood hatched and still no sign of eggs or larvae. 12 Jan eggs, larvae and new queen found. Honey super almost full. After the supersedure/emergency queen everything was going gang busters and supers filling up.So in all its been a mixed up hive to get where it is today. Did get 16 frames of honey harvested. Left four frames uncapped but as I stated this hasn't been capped. There was capped honey on the outer frames in the brood box but this has been eaten. Being a newby I am not completely up to speed on the variations of bee life at this time of the year.Your process of determining robbers is great and I will try this out. There is a massive amount of wasps around this year. I have one of Kyles blue hive gates which has been in place for several weeks.I have a full super of honey frames from last season which was collected while bayvarol was being used so I didn't extract this. Is this a suitable for feed now and switch to suger closer to spring to encourage queen laying?
Thanks for the detailed reply Alistair, I was surprised by the varroa count being so high. A little history - I lost both my hives last season, it seems this was the case for many bee keepers. I collected a small swarm mid 12th October. After checking several times I was unable to locate the queen? Bolstered the hive with a new queen and five frames of brood and accompanying bees as well as 4 strips of Bayvarol on the 20th Oct. 23 Oct placed a sticky board in for 3 days and had 61 varroa. Placed another sticky board for another 3 days and had 51 varroa count. 2 Nov 3rd sticky board but this time a coreflute with cooking oil spray for 1 week. The board was very clean so not sure if the bees cleaned the spray off but there was only a 5 varroa count. Lots of eggs and brood. Had an AFB inspection and by late Dec queen went AWOL. There was no eggs or larvae but still plenty of brood yet to emerge. 30 Dec still no queen to be found (may have missed her or she was in the mating period) All brood hatched and still no sign of eggs or larvae. 12 Jan eggs, larvae and new queen found. Honey super almost full. After the supersedure/emergency queen everything was going gang busters and supers filling up.
So in all its been a mixed up hive to get where it is today. Did get 16 frames of honey harvested. Left four frames uncapped but as I stated this hasn't been capped. There was capped honey on the outer frames in the brood box but this has been eaten. Being a newby I am not completely up to speed on the variations of bee life at this time of the year.
Your process of determining robbers is great and I will try this out. There is a massive amount of wasps around this year. I have one of Kyles blue hive gates which has been in place for several weeks.
I have a full super of honey frames from last season which was collected while bayvarol was being used so I didn't extract this. Is this a suitable for feed now and switch to suger closer to spring to encourage queen laying?
