It's been 4 weeks since I started the Apiguard treatment. I came home tonight and removed the foil tray and the inverted feeder. I also opened up the access hole in the front of the top hive body. I noticed a few SHBs on the top cover, but only a few. I will wait for the weekend before I do a more thorough inspection.
I want to assess the overall strength of the hive and whether I need to think about combining it with the other hive. I will also try to equalize the hive and if I need to I will move the brood frames to the bottom hive body. Finally I'll check the stores and see what feeing may be necessary and I'll decide if I need to add some Fumagellin. So a busy weekend ahead!
I also took the opportunity to feed the Parent hive again. They took the best part of 2 litres of syrup. So that's about 7 litres in the last 2 weeks. As with the Daughter hive I didn't take a thorough look, but I hope the bees have been building up their stores.
I will have to take care when undertaking the inspection. I do not want to have the hive open too long and do encourage any robbing by other bees in the neighbourhood! By all accounts this has been a problem this Fall.
No comments:
Post a Comment