Inspecting Our Hive After FormicPro Treatment | Adding a Second Round & a Queen Cell Mistake
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ต.ค. 2024
- In this video, we dive into our hive inspection after completing the first round of FormicPro treatment for varroa mites. Join us as we assess the hive’s health, check on the bees, and add a second round of FormicPro for continued protection against these harmful pests.
However, things don’t always go as planned. During the inspection, we found a queen cell and decided to remove it-turns out, that was a mistake! Watch to learn from our experience and see why leaving queen cells can be important for your colony's success.
#Beekeeping #HiveInspection #FormicPro #VarroaMites #QueenCell #BeekeepingMistakes #HoneyBees #BeeHealth #SustainableBeekeeping #LearnBeekeeping #BeeColony #SaveTheBees #BeginnersBeekeeping #NaturalBeekeeping
I think you will be fine. Good Luck
Been there, done that, loving your honesty. Keep it real, my fellow bee keeper
I'm in 11th yr beekeeping. Nobody has all the answers. Old timer beeks not any more/less successful than me here. My management recent yrs has been more hands off. I treat, feed, protect from elements & bears, keep up with added room needed, split or combine when prudent, but minimize monkeying with them much beyond that. No decision is a decision. Bees know what they need. Yes I lose a lot of swarms. The unpredictability/problem solving is what makes beekeeping so interesting. We're doing best we can. Is OK.
I try to limit to once a week in the hives. Would like to be in there all the time. (guess I need more hives) It's nice to hear when you're okay with losing swarms and that you're hands-off but treat when needed. There is a beekeeper close to us that is completely hands-off. No treatments. They survive, but I think that is why our mite pressure is so high.
Do you mind saying how many colonies you have.?. Heard others that are good with losing swarms, but they tend to have good size apiaries.
I hope your bees make it. Best wishes.
Hindsight is 20-20, just remember that my friend
It's a supercedes cell,I believe.
Its better in my opinion to do the 2 pad treatment. I have never lost a queen as long as temps do not get above 80 degrees. It works so much better at killing mites
They still have eggs so they still can make a new queen if they have to. You just set them back a bit.
Got drones? Doubtful
This is one of the reasons i wont use formic, its bad for causing supersedures. Its well know for causing that and queen loss in general as well as loss in worker brood. Build yourself some 2 frame nucs. Anytime you run across an abundance of queen cells drop that frame and another frame of bees in that box and your resource hive is made. We all make mistakes, were all learning. I put out a video on my channel last year of a hive loss. It was 100% my fault, I forgot to feed that particular colony. I overlooked it I guess, You could tell in the video that it really bothered me but I picked myself up. We always learn from mistakes. Youll recover!
Thanks for sharing that. I'll go over and check out you channel.
I have fooled with bees for fifty years and I have made thousands of crazy mistakes as well but the biggest thing that you’ve learned here is the mistake you made. That’s good because you will never forget it.
To cut to the chase, I have learned that the bees know better than me and they can handle most problems themselves. Good luck and keep expanding because the frames you showed was spectacular my friend, your doing a amazing job
Thank you for that! I am amazed at watching them adapt. They may even learn to deal with my constant pestering!?! Well, not constant, but i wish I could.
Formic pro is very heavy on the bees and it causes superseders frequently. If you have deformed wing virus and high mite load oxalic is best. Bees are not affected by it and kills mites instantly. When was this video actually taken ?
Depending on where you are, getting rid of the queen cell might might have been so bad. Earlier in the season they may have had a chance to replace her, but With it being September, I’d say it might be difficult for a queen to get mated. It may even be to late to get a replacement queen in the mail, although thats what I suggest you do if you can. If not, it may be best to combine the hives and split in the spring. They may make another queen cell, you’d have to watch it really close and combine if they fail to get a mated queen.
If she's really gone, I'll try to buy a mated queen to not lose a month of egg laying.
From someone whos worked in engineering, love the profile pic.
I once watched a video where it said something about feeding turkey tail mushrooms to bees to modulate their immune systems to work more properly. It made me wonder if the herb cat's claw might just work even better. I don't know. As a young boy I remember wondering why bees always were in the woods next to my dad's garden digging for turkey tail mushroom mycelium. The video is from a guy named Paul Stamets. You can find it if you want to find out what he has to say.
Paul Stamets is the mushroom king as I understand it. I have heard of this but no real research has been done.
Cornell University with Marla Spivak may be the best path to a real answer. She has determined that the immune system of a honey bee colony is communal and much has to do with a propolis envelope.
I actually did a heavy rub of turkey tail on the inside of a hive box when I heard this, some time ago but I don't know which box that was... lol, bad science! I had it available as I like turkey tail tea
I'll check out the video. I had to look up Turkey Tail mushrooms. Never heard of it before. WOW! It's everywhere as a supplement. Lot's of the bee health supplements have different essential oils that are suppose to help gut and overall health. Might be something to the Cats Claw. Do you ever see bees on it?
@@aPlaceintheHive cat's claw, no, I have not seen bees on cat's claw. I'm just figuring that it it's good for us in that way it's probably good for bee's too. It grows next to clearings in the Amazon jungle. It should grow their in the Carolinas. As long as the roots don't freeze.
I’m getting bees in summer. I’ve been watching every video I can. We fed wild bees this year to watch their behavior.
I joined local bee groups. I’ll be getting local bees from my county. Sigh.
This mite thing is scary lol.
What causes the mites? Is there anything to prevent them? Do the bees not control these themselves? So wild.
Being new and not an authority, books, people and video state they are everywhere. Can't stop them but treatments help keep them to a level where the bees can do their thing and be bees. This one hive is way off and it's obvious in the way they act.
Also just because you have queen cells after a formic treatment does not mean you lost your queen. They will tear them down after a few days when queen starts to lay again.
Looks like hive battle larva
Don’t beat yourself up about this. You said this post was made in December. So what if the queen is missing and the Supercedure queen cell was created. How many Drone bees would you expect for her to mate with? The Drones are gone! The queen would have never been mated. The hive would still be doomed even if she hatched. You should just combine this hive with a queen right hive for the winter and then split in the Spring. Concerning FormicPro, it is very hard on queens. I tried FormicPro and lost 3 queens. In December you are better off pulling honey supers and using ApiVar or leaving supers on and using Oxalic Acid. Keep trying and don’t feel about mistakes. We have made plenty of them in our history. You are doing a good job.
Thank you for that!!!
Cut yourself some slack buddy. You are clearly passionate and caring you will do great as a bee keeper. With out failure there is no learning. You can think you understand a thing but after you make a mistake you really understand before you just thought you did.
I did the same thing not 60 days ago and I was so foolish I didn't look for eggs... it was dark... I saw fresh capped brood. 20 mins later I was like... WTF was I Thinking? I can have capped brood and be without a queen for 2 weeks... Bless them I put in another frame of eggs and larvae and they made another queen. (looks like you have a queen)
I really dont see that you made a mistake. If the hive has issues with this queen as you say they will make another emergency cell and replace her anyway. In all honesty to find 'ONE' emergency cell is rare. Likely you miss several more and they will just requeen anyway.
On mite treatment.... you have so much capped brood you need to understand no matter how many mites you get on your bottom board that is 1/3 or less of the mites in the colony. suggest sampling brood for mites after your second treatment... I would just hit them again with something else. It is not possible to bring a mite wash down from 6 % or more with two treatments of anything.to a point of less than 1/2 a % in the entire hive. I dont care what the directions say.
Please for your bees and your peace of mind.... after this treatment take out a frame with lots of capped brood. Count 50 and remove each larvae and look at them and into the hole they came out of. The larvae are pure white and the varroa red... they stand out like a light in the dark. ONE mite is all you are allowed on 50 larvae... Then you will know if you have a hive that is actually healthy and ready for honey productions or weather you are just setting up for a small honey harvest followed by the collapse of your hive in early winter or spring when you are not even thinking of them.
cheers... GO TEAM BEE
I didn't even think of the volume of capped brood. You're right. there is still alot of it. FormicPro is supposed to work it's way in there, but the one strip treatment may be too weak to do any good in there. Thanks so much for the suggestion!
IF WAS SUMMER YOU COULD SPLIT OR TAKE IT DOWN
Hi new beekeeper from southern New Zealand 👋😃 the only real mistake is the one you are stupid enough not to learn from the first three times it happens. It's easy to "jump the gun" and really easy too fry yourself afterwards about what you could or should have done, incorrect approaches are part of finding your groove and what works for you as a beekeeper. It's part of beekeeping, I'm supposed to be a "experienced beekeeper", This weeks personal dumb assery from southern New Zealand beekeeping idiot squad is, Me checking a hobbyist hives, found a whole bunch (about a thousand, it was loaded) of bee's dead in the frame feeder and fermented syrup, took the damn thing out, walked five meters away and dumped the lot out, so I could clean the thing with hot water and refill it with clean syrup BEFORE 🤦completing the inspection and discovered he had deformed wing virus in spades in that colony 🤦 and now I just dumped a whole bunch of dwv infected dead bee's covered in syrup, I might as well have installed a neon sign with "get your deformed wing virus free right here bee's" 😂 I felt like a right idiot when I realized. It happens, keep at it but I won't tell you that your mistakes will get less stupid 😂
Thanks for sharing your experience. Makes me wonder about the infected bees that were walking away from the hive. Carpenter ants and Yellow Jackets would grab them pretty quick. I would think it could infect them, but don't guess it did. I've had more Yellow Jackets than ever before.
Also, my wife want to know if New Zealand is as cool as she thinks it is.?.
@@aPlaceintheHive oh it's REAL COOL right now, we've got another spring storm coming up from Antarctica and wet snow again 😂 I live in the mountains of central Otago, if you've seen lord of the rings I live in Rohan 😂 it's where they shot a lot of the scenes for that, just up the road from Queenstown, about a hour drive so it's pretty nice scenery but the spring weather is interesting 😅
@@aPlaceintheHive we don't have carpenter ants but we do have yellow jackets we call them German wasps and they're a blasted menace here, probably the worst thing we have.
My gosh i wish i had that flow happening here..get yourself Apiguard and treat soon as you pull honey , use half doses if really hot out Or take plunge and go tf like me but get different bees if you try. Need feral
Thanks for the suggestion. I'm itching to put up swarm traps next year. Good chance to get some ferals out where my brother lives.
The crying thumbnail took me out, but it looks like it worked. Seeing such new beekeepers beat themselves up worrying about battling mites is a shame. It's supposed to be an enjoyable undertaking. Anyway, good luck.
LOL! Wasn't supposed to look like crying. It's a facepalm, I thought.