Brisa & Joyla Check-in
November 23, 2018

Today we are both struggling with colds but were worried about our high varroa counts 8 days ago. We decided to split inspections and check Altadena today and the nursery tomorrow. Jeff checked both sticky bottom boards and found a lot of dead varroa that bees groomed off other bees. They fell through the screen and landed on the bottom board. (See illustration) we also saw about ten wiggling worms, probably wax moth!

The Brisa hive looked fabulous… teaming with activity, bees out foraging and returning, queen visible and laying, capped honey and brood. Jeff tested for Varroa after our sugar dusting last week and we found 11/240 bees as compared to 20/300 last week. Any decrease is welcome! We dusted again, happy to avoid chemical treatment. The bees ate most of the pollen and that is where we found the wiggling worms. We took it out and will return next week to feed and add a new pollen patty.

The Joyla hive was the hive that had 60 mites/250 last week. This hive won’t make it. The queen is there but she is not laying, spotty brood, too few bees to test for varroa. We dusted again and closed it up. Not looking good. We don’t want to combine hives since these bees will bring their heavy mite count over. Hmmm… I may ask Keith Roberts and Les Bilek what to do. Count it as a loss or do something creative? We can’t move brood frames because they are different sizes..