We had our first natural bee keeping course of the year back in march. This one was for the more experienced, which allowed Phil Chandler and Tim Hall to take the participants a bit deeper into the world of bee keeping. We explored swarm control, hive splits, and had local bee inspector Adam Veevers talk about pests and diseases.
The beautiful weather also allowed us to go into some of the hives. We dusted 2 of the topbars and 2 of the dadants with icing sugar. We use icing sugar dusting as a way of encouraging 'hygienic behaviour' (cleaning themselves) among the bees to encourage them to clean off the Varroa mites. We have continued this treatment weekly, for 4 weeks, in order to catch the next adult varroa mites in the lifecycles. By the end of the four treatments the hope is that the mites will be down to safe levels for the bees to enter summer thriving.
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