Episode-217- Check In On The Top Bar Hive

The video for today’s episode presents the thrive hive which is the sole remaining bee colony on my property. This colony has remained strong from the time it was placed in the top bar hive in April 2013. It was doing so well that I took three top bars full of brood (bee larvae and pupae), pollen and honey in early

June in an attempt to rescue colonies B and C. That turned out to be a waste of resources and time because neither of those colonies survived. Then in early September I had reason to believe the Varroa Destructor mite count was too high to leave it alone. So I put the colony through a three week treatment of AprilLife Var which is a thymol based treatment. I was worried about the effect on the brood and newer bees but as you can see from the video all seems well with this thrive hive.

During the inspection I noted a lot of good brood being developed and observed plenty of larvae and all were covered with nurse bees which means they were being well cared for. I did not feel the need to break up the brood nest further in an attempt to find eggs or the queen.I saw good evidence of her presence at least as recently as a week ago.

I will continue feeding the colony a mixture of 2:1 sugar water with Honey B Healthy, wintergreen, tea tree oil and a pinch of mineral salt until they cluster up and don’t take it anymore. At the same time they are doing a great job of taking advantage of the awesome e warm weather we have been enjoying lately. Today it is October 3rd and the temperature is 84F (29C), flowers are still blooming and the bees keep bringing in the pollen.

Resources

Song of the Day – Galactic Live at the 2013 Peach Music Festival – Night People

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