Saturday, July 8, 2017

2017 ECWBA FIELD DAY

Another successful ECWBA Field Day!  Denise Palkovich hosted the field day this year.  She had arranged for one of the Wisconsin State Bee Inspectors, Dan Ziehli, to be present.  Denise and Dan went through about 6 hives.  Denise pointing out the typical things to look for during a normal hive inspection.  Dan was also taking bee and debris samples for analysis later at state and federal labs. 

Denise had a combination of 8 and 10 frame Langstroth hives.  She demonstrated some of her varroa control measures; varroa trapping on drone brood which she removed periodically.  Denise uses drone comb or lets the bees build the drone comb in deep supers by inserting a medium frame.  The bees fill the empty area with drone comb.  Her varroa control techniques appear to be working.  We got to inspection the varroa mite drop on pull out inspection boards.  The counts ranged from 0 to 3 mites for boards that had been in place for a week. 

Denise has enlarged her apiary since our previous visit and is now running about 12 hives.  The state inspector found nothing out of the ordinary.   From Denise’s comments she has typical beekeeper issues; hives superceding their queens, poor performing hives, and hives making so much honey that the hives were getting unmanageable.  

Denise ended the field day encouraging everyone to practice good mite control after the honey harvest in mid August and gave a brief description on how to use Apiguard, MiteAway Quick Strips and oxalic acid vapor. 

Don’t be afraid to ask the state inspectors for a visit.  If they can schedule it they will.  Their goal is not to punish beekeepers, but rather to work with them to take any corrective actions needed.  Dan’s phone numbers are:  Office: 608-224-4572 or Cell: 608-444-3209


Thank you Denise for a good educational field day.  

                                                               A few of Denise's hives
                                                                 Field Day attendees
                                                 State Inspector, Dan Ziehli, on the left
                                             One of the drone combs used as a varroa trap
                                                    A drone larvae with two varroa mites

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