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More About Treatment for Tracheal Mites

The “Menthol Shop Towel” Method:

Combine one (1) pound of menthol crystals in one (1) pint canola oil. Heat and stir in metal coffee can until crystals are dissolved. (Do this outside your home). Wear gloves. Cut a roll of paper shop towels in half to make two short cylinders out of one long cylinder.  This recipe uses only one of the halves.  Immerse one end of one half in the liquid. Then turn it over and immerse the other end so that all the liquid is soaked up. Double bag the resulting wet roll in zip-lock plastic bags and keep it in the freezer. To treat, tear off a section and place it on top of the frames of the brood nest. Wait about 12 days and repeat, for a total of two treatments.

The Sugar/Oil Patty Method:

Excerpt from Jennifer Berry's Georgia Bee Letter, University of Georgia's
Dept. of Entomology:

"If you haven't already done so, now [early February] is the time to treat with oil extender
patties: two parts sugar to one part vegetable shortening or oil.....make up
small patties about four inches in diameter and 1/2 inch thick and place on
a piece of wax paper ... place the square on top of the frames in the brood
chamber. While the bees consume the sugar, oil from the patty will adhere to
their bodies.  The oil acts like a shield thus the tracheal mites are unable
to recognize suitable young hosts.  Oil patties are acceptable for porlonged
treament since the oil swill not contaminate honey supplies." 

You can remove the wax paper if there is any left after the bees have consumed the patty or when you put the honey supers on.

Clarification: the sugar/oil patty is a method for helping to prevent tracheal mites from infecting bees or spreading throughout the hive;  it is not a method for treating bees already infected.  To do that you should use one of the menthol treatments. 

More About Requeening

More About Feeding

More About Entrance Reducers

Entrance reducers are not just for fall and winter;  the size of the entrance should always be adjusted to the strength of the hive.  The entrance should be just big enough to avoid a traffic jam during the peak of the day.  In the summer, a strong hive needs a large entrance to accomodate the large number of bees coming and going.  But a new package, a new split or a hive weakened for some other reason should always have a smaller entrance.  And even strong hives need a smaller entrance during the winter, as there is much less traffic.  The first reason for making the entrance just big enough is that the entire width of the entrance must be guarded.  The larger the entrance, the more bees must be assigned to guard it, taking them away from more productive jobs in the hive.  An unguarded entrance is an open invitation to robbing by neighbor bees.  The second reason for reducing the entrance is to discourage mice, skunks and other pests from taking up residence in the hive during the coldest months -- hence sometimes reducers are referred to as "mouse guards."  Wooden entrance reducers available from bee equipment suppliers have three or four configurations, to allow for different size entrances as needed.  The same effect can be achieved by proper sizes of scrap wood.  A hive with a front feeder should usually have a small entrance as these feeders are especially attractive to robbers.

         Here's a picture of hives with metal mouse 
         guards in place.

Here's a wooden entrance reducer in place.  Some will say it's on upside down. 
The bees don't mind.

More About Ventilation

The biggest threat to a beehive is not cold, or pests, or starvation.  The biggest threat is moisture.   Ventilation is crucial, and it is even more important in the winter than in the summer.  Humidity is high in the hive due to nectar or syrup being evaporated, as well as all that bee respiration.  As the temperature falls at night, that moisture condenses on the inner cover, forming drops which can actually rain into the hive.  Wetness chills the bees and more importantly the queen, and the bees cannot do anything about it.  Even hives with a screened bottom board need upper ventilation because warm moist air rises to the top of the hive.  Be sure your hives have an upper ventilation crack or hole to let water vapor escape.  However, an upper hole larger than a bee is a bad idea when a feeder is on the hive, as it allows robber bees to enter.  Close up the holes if you have a top feeder in place.  Top feeders don't work all that well in cold weather anyway.

More About Exchanging the Brood Boxes

 During the winter or early spring the cluster of bees may move from the bottom hive body to the upper body or super, following the food supply and finding it easier to keep warm up there.  Once the queen is in the uppper story she does not like to go back down.  Even when the population starts to increase and there is no more room to lay in the upper body she does not like to go down to lay in the lower body, especially if it is still cool at night.  Thus the bees think they are crowded even if they have empty space below.  To give them more room, just switch the positions of the two boxes (doesn't matter if they are both full size, half size, different sizes, whatever).  Try to orient all the frames and boxes the same way they were, front/back and side/side.  The queen had them the way she liked them.  One caveat:  think of the brood nest as spherical across the middle frames in the middle of the colony.  The nest can span the tops of the bottom-box frames and the bottoms of the top-box frames.  In this situation if you reverse the boxes the brood nest will now be at the top of the top box and the bottom of the bottom box, with unoccupied space in between.  The bees may not be able to stretch far enough to keep all this brood warm and some of it may chill and die.  So reverse the boxes if you are pretty sure the bees have all moved upstairs, and not if the brood is split across the two stories.

More About Avoiding Swarming

Bees are programmed to swarm;  this is nature's way of propagating the species.  The beekeeper who tries to avoid swarming is swimming against the tide.  Nevertheless, a big honey harvest and a profitable bee yard depends on keeping swarming to a minimum, so we try.  The key to successful beekeeping, though, is to help the bees do what they are trying to do, not to fight them.  The bees have several cues, not completely understood, that tell them to prepare to swarm.  The beekeeper who wants to avoid swarming should act well in advance to reduce the cues.  Once the cues are in place there is little the beekeeper can do to stop the swarming.  Much (conflicting advice) has been written on what causes bees to swarm.  The basics seem to include:  a) an older queen; b) a nectar flow, so the swarm will have food; and c) increasing crowded conditions in the hive.  The beekeeper can address a) by requeening in the early fall.  We can also address c) by making splits and/or adding honey supers to the hive.  Recognize that by feeding the hive, we are simulating b) so that condition is met.  A crowded hive that thinks there is food available will be wanting to swarm.  Much beekeeping advice includes cutting out swarm queen cells to discourage swarming;  but once the swarming instinct is strong, this will not prevent the swarm leaving and will only reduce the liklihood that the old hive will survive.  To avoid swarming, the beekeeper must keep young, vigorous queens and be vigilant about reducing crowded conditions.  Making splits by removing brood and eggs (and nurse bees) from the parent hive is an excellent way to increase your hives as well as reduce the liklihood of swarming.  This should be done from late January onwards.  The splits can raise their own queen from eggs and you have another hive to raise or sell.  Even if the split doesn't survive, you've added value to the parent hive by keeping your queen and more of the bees.

More About Taking Honey