Today it was time to have a mid-winter check on the bees, and do an oxalic acid trickle as a preventative measure to keep mite numbers low.It took a good long time to get into Poly, as the brick had frozen to the roof with snow, and the strap wouldn’t budge. However, once inside I found a nice healthy colony, who had lots of stores, had hardly touched the sugar bags. I did the oxalic acid trickle, then sealed them back up again, having cleared away some dead bees and snow from the entrance.
Heather was much the same - a slightly smaller colony, but with plenty of stores, and also forming a good cluster. Oxalic Acid trickle done then also sealed up again.
The nuc, Alice, has sadly not survived. On inspection the bees were all dead - spread all over the frames, in what looked like normal activity. There was plenty of capped stores, which was untouched, and the bees weren’t all buried headfirst into the cells, as you usualll get with starvation. Their being all spread out implies that they were queenless and had lost the instinct to bundle together. Given the lack of any other obvious cause, I’m going to assume this is the reason for their demise.
Still, 2 out of 3 is a good number to be at at this stage - now to hope all stays well until spring when I can start them off with a spring feed!
