Treatment

We made the decision to treat our hives for mites. Aaron picked up some Miteaway II from Glory Bee while it was on sale. I was still unsure if we should use it or not, I did a lot of research on the product (65% food grade formic acid, not a nice thing, but it is relatively safe and leaves no residue in the hive). Then we randomly ran into a local bee expert, we talked to him for a long time. I didn't realize who he was until he handed me his card and I recognized his name. He's kind of a big deal, although his website doesn't seem to reflect that. He told us that if we don't treat our bees, we will lose 50%. He does not treat his bees because he is selecting for the strongest ones. I went home and checked the sticky board under the hive, which I hadn't done for a few weeks, and one of our hives was infested badly with varroa mites. I'll try and get a picture up of what they look like. Time to treat! We did a quick inspection to see how honey stores were and how everyone looked. Then Aaron put on gloves, a respirator and goggles.


We set the acid pads on some small pieces of wood to keep them off the top bars and then put the lid on. Super easy.


Then he taped up the hive to turn it into a "fumigation chamber" according to the manufacturer. We leave the pads in place for 3 weeks then remove them. If during the first week day time temperatures go below 50 or over 80 the pads must be removed. We hit 80 on day 7, and got lucky since it is so warm this week (please keep growing garden!!).



The dead mites are falling down onto the new sticky paper - success! When the 21 days is up we will put the hives on lock down for the winter - adding ventilation and putting a mouse guard on the front entrance.