Applied Examples

Thankfully, I have not to experienced all of the disorders across these page. However, I have dealt with quite a few of them. The most common disorders in my apiary include Varroa Mites and some of the diseases they vector, small hive beetles, wax moths, queenlessness and laying workers, starvation, chilled brood, and spotty brood pattern.

Heres some advice, walk out to your apiary on a regular basis. When I do a walk-through I’m checking multiple things:

  • to see how many bees are flying in and out of my hives (cleansing flights, orientation flights, foraging, robber bees during a dearth)
  • are the bees carrying pollen, I can visually see this, it tells me that something in the area is blooming
  • are the bees flying heavy, carrying water and nectar back to the hive
  • are the guard bees active at the entrance, if there aren’t many bees at the entrance I will install an entrance reducer
  • any external signs of stress (Nosema)
  • dead bees (pesticide kill or predator)

I like to be outside in my yard, and so I check my bees usually once a day.

In the spring of the year, I do inspections every week to two weeks. During inspections:

  • get a feel for the weight of your boxes (how much honey do they have) If your boxes feel like they’re nailed down they have pleanty of honey
  • check for bee coverage (how many bees cover the top bars), this gives you an idea of how many bees make up the brood nest
  • look at the brood pattern (nice size round brood pattern without empty cells indicates a well bred queen)
  • check for eggs (if you see eggs then you know your queen was alive and well within the past three days)
  • look for the queen, just as an insurance policy, and its easy with a little bit of practice. (if you cant find the queen, then just make sure you have eggs and come back again later)

The best advice I can give you is to maintain strong healthy colonies, cull the queens that aren’t producing the desired results, and split from your healthiest hives.

Regularly check your mite load. You can do this with a

There are many different methods you can use within an integrated pest management system to treat for varroa mites. Find out what options are easily available to you and treat your bees as needed. I have been using CheckMite+, ApiLife Var, and plan to start using oxalic acid.

If your boxes feel light, feed your bees.

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