Disclaimer: It is sometimes difficult to piece together a post-mortem of your hive. The best way to get your bees to overwinter is to plan ahead. It is disheartening when hives die, but you are planning ahead *RIGHT NOW* to increase your survivorship by learning more. A few questions: How heavy were your brood boxes going into winter? Did the bees have enough resources to make it through winter? In Minnesota, we build up our colonies into 3 deeps and leave 75-100 lbs. of honey for the bees to make it through winter and 3-5 frames of pollen to give the bees enough protein to…
Author: Chris Kulhanek
Chris has been keeping bees for 5 years and has worked for the University of Minnesota Bee Lab for the last three bee seasons. She assisted in fieldwork with Bee Informed Partnership for the last two years. She has a Bachelor of Science in Biology, with a Chemistry minor, and a Masters of Science in Entomology. She particularly enjoys sharing her adoration for insects with others and is proud she has been a "weird bug girl" for more than 20 years.
Know your honey bee colonies: non-destructive testing for varroa mites
Varroa mites (Varroa destructor) were accidentally introduced into the U.S. in 1987 and rapidly became a destructive pest of honeybees. Not only do varroa mites suck the blood (haemolymph) of the bees, they transmit disease through this feeding and generally weaken colonies (Rosenkranz et al. 2010). Low infestations of varroa mites left without mitigation can develop into a serious problem for a hive. It is recommended you test your honey bees for varroa mites periodically throughout the season. Here in Minnesota, we test for varroa in spring (May), in late August or early September, and then after treatment has been on for the recommended time,…
Oxalic Acid registered by EPA for use against Varroa mite on Honey bees
The varroa mite (Varroa destructor) has caused widespread devastation to honey bees through vampire-like feeding on larval and adult bees which decreases normal adult honey bee size, shortens their lifespan and can transfer viruses between bee hosts. (Rosenkrantz et al. 2010). Oxalic acid (CAS #144-62-7) has just been registered by the EPA for use on honey bee colonies here in the US. Oxalic acid has been legal to use on honeybees in Europe and Canada and is a naturally occurring chemical that can be found in a number of plants. It also occurs naturally…