Counting Mite Falls

I got my last holdout hive under the treatment threshold today, which for me is 2%. With temperatures hovering around 38 degrees F today, the Mite Calculator came in extra handy. It was too cold to open the hive and collect a sample of bees, so it'd be tough otherwise to make an informed decision about whether I need to treat again next week.

If you've ever counted mites on a sticky board, you know it can be hard to keep track of what you've already counted. A few years ago I made this simple aid that helps with this problem. Counting one row at a time drastically improves the accuracy of the tally. Some sticky boards have a grid built into them, but for all others this is a handy tool.

MiteCalculator.com Featured on Popular Beekeeping Podcast

What a pleasant surprise to hear Kevin Inglin discussing this site today on The Beekeeper's Corner podcast. I look forward to listening to BK Corner every couple weeks, and it's easily my favorite beekeeping podcast. If you're a beek, there are few better ways to stay entertained during your commute or while you're doing chores. Kevin discusses MiteCalculator.com at the 1:22 mark, but the whole episode is worth a listen. Click here for the episode.

Winterizing With Snow Visors

I spent the last few days winterizing my hives. This includes my own little invention--visors to keep snow from blocking the entrance on hives at my outyard (shown in yellow here). This should keep me from worrying too much about hives I can't check on a daily basis. Surely someone's thought of this before, but I couldn't find anything quite like it on the internet.

Two-Wheeled Honey Deliveries

On request, I deliver honey to people in the local area on a motorcycle (I know, it's such an old cliche). Using my motorcycle makes it feasible to deliver without an extra charge, thanks to its sky-high efficiency. This was probably my last two-wheeled delivery until next spring, though, as the weather is turning cold this week.

Bees and Water

Bees need water for number of things, like cooling the hive and thinning thick or crystallized honey for feeding. Our home yard has a flowing spring near the hives, but our outyard didn't have a good source of year-round water...until now. This week we re-built our old farm pond, which had filled over the years with silt and cattails. In addition to improving wildlife habitat and providing some good fishing, the new pond will be a short flight for bees foraging for water. (If you look closely, there are a couple hives visible behind the dam on the right side of the picture.)