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Ok.
I did verroa treatments in October, and had lost 2 hives. I've processed and bottled and now am in the selling/cost recovery phase of the operation.
Yesterday it was warm, so I went down to put the winter patties on the hives. For those that don't know, winter patties are a playdough texture mixture of sugar, some bee health supplements and essential oils. It provides carobydrates and some antibiotic health for the colony during the winter. They don't contain protein/pollen because that will stimulate egg laying and you don't want that due to the impact on food resources. If the bee ball works eats its way to the top of the hive, the winter patty sitting on top gives them some food to get them by for a while.
So, during this process yesterday I found 2 more dead outs and one more that doesn't look good. That's a total of 4 dead, one that probably will be going INTO winter....not good.
I did rob the comb from the dead outs and used them to backfill some of the hives that had less resources.
I'm a little baffled by what happened, but I know several other bee keepers who are losing bees this fall. One lost 17 of his 45 already. He's blaming verroa on his.
i did notice a design flaw in my horizontal hive...There just isn't enough room between the frames and the lid. I'll be building a spacer of maybe 3-4" to raise that so I have room for insulation next year.
Anway, I'm about done for the winter, with maybe a little wrapping but I haven't decided on what I'm doing about that this year. I'm now selling honey in 3 stores so that helps moving it easier. If I can keep these(most of them) alive, it shouldn't be hard to backfill my losses as I've learned alot about trapping bees this year and am confident I'll be able to catch what I need in the spring.
Hope you all had a good year.
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