8/29/09: 10th Inspection and Sugar-Dusting

Conditions: Sunny, 68F
Present: Bud, Mohammad, and I
Equipment: Added screened bottom board to the Italian hive only. (Just had one)
Activities: Smoked hives about 1:45pm. Inspected assorted frames. Sugar-dusted both hives for the first time ever with a sugar-dusting bellows.
Observations: In the Italian hive there was not a lot of honey stored up. This could be due to a population interruption as the queen had stopped laying for a few weeks. The brood was up higher in the frames of the deep and the queen had been laying the the first super. The honey supers we had added almost a month ago had no additional comb built in them. Just bare foundation. I don't think there's been enough nectar available in August to support making that much more wax, and "they aren't going to build it if they don't have anything to store in it" (Bud). We decided to resume feeding the Italians due to the lack of nectar available. We'll check again in three or four weeks to see what's what. A fall flow may allow them to build out something in those honey supers.

When changing out the solid bottom board and installing the screen bottom board we had ample opportunity to inspect Italian workers and drones for varroa. None were noted. Still, with only one screened bottom board, it went to the weaker colony of Italians (since the Russian are supposedly more resistant to varroa).

In the Russian hive we observed more capped honey and nectar than in the Italian. This colony did not have a population interruption. They had build some brace comb between the deep and the first super and laid drone in it, so taking out frames and removing the first super to inspect the deep was a gooey larval-paste mess. We did not have the opportunity to inspect workers closely for mites as they were not very happy. Overall they seem healthy and we are not planning to resume feeding them yet.

Sugar-dusting was interesting. Bud had purchased a bellows at a local beekeeper shop. Dusting the bees with powdered sugar increases grooming activity which results in mite drop, right through the screen bottom board. The bees are not treated with harmful chemicals and they end up with a bonus food source. We figured out how to use the bellows properly at the very end, so the Russians and the Italians did not get a thorough dusting. We'll know the trick for next time. You have to pump it violently and erratically to get enough sugar to drop into the airway path to be blown out the tip. We'll likely pick up another screen bottom board for the Russians and do one more dusting before the winter sets in. "Take care of the bees that will be taking care of the bees that will overwinter." Those future nurse bees are emerging now.

No honey harvest this year, as expected (though we hoped for a really productive year and a little honey for ourselves). Hopefully they will have stored up enough to keep them over the winter.

The apiary may be relocating as I may be moving to a house 15 minutes away. If we sell our house, there will be a future post regarding our adventures in moving bees.