I took a stroll over to visit the Droogies during my lunch hour today and was astonished to see how the activity at the entrance of my hive compared to the hives around it. As you might recall, I've been jealous of the amount of bees going in and out of the neighbor's hives, but I don't have to be jealous anymore. It is a bit of the "Tortoises and the Hares." His hives were gangbusters earlier this summer, having started with 4 lb packages of Italians, whereas I started a few weeks later with 3 lb packages of Russians. However, my hives now have much more activity and many more bees than those around them. Why might this be? I can think of a couple possibilities:
• Feeding: I fed my bees longer after installing them in the hive. This might have encouraged the queen to lay more, but I doubt that this is the reason.
• Swarms: I think he might have had some swarming. His packages were installed in a deep hive body, and still only have one deep and one medium on them, which makes me think that they would be very crowded by now. His hive that overwintered almost definitely swarmed. There were soooo many bees in that hive at the beginning of spring, and now it looks like his other hives.
• Disease: I hate to say it, but I think his hives might be suffering from mites. I don't think he uses screen boards or any other form of pest management, including treatment for the hive that overwintered. His bees are also Italians, which may be more susceptible to mites than my Russians.
The commercial beekeeper who has many hives in the yard next to ours has harvested his honey recently. His hives, which were six or seven supers tall, are now just a deep and a medium. I wonder if he'll start medicating his hives in preparation for winter, and if this will affect the honey that I'm planning to take from my hives in a couple weeks. I sure hope not.
No comments:
Post a Comment