JANUARY 1ST HIVE CHECK by beekeeper Fred

January 1^st I did a hive check.  The check is simply listening to each hive with a stethoscope.  I have a 1 inch diameter moisture vent hole drilled in the upper brood chamber, so I place the stethoscope on the hole.  Live hives emit a hum or buzz.  Stoney silence lets you know the hive has expired.  For what it’s worth here is the data.  

BACKGROUND:

-I had good survival last winter; 100% as of January 1^st and still at a respectable 83% at April 1^st.

-I am in the process of converting all hives to Russian stock by attrition based on the Russian's purported better tolerance to mites.

-50% of my hives were heavily fed 2/1 sugar water in the fall.

-Many others had a sugar column (modified candy board) added in late November.

-I treated for mites in early September with MAQS, but to three different levels.  Italian and Carniolan hives received the full recommended dose.  Last winter I treated all Russian hives with a 50% dose and had good survival.  This year I thought I would back off a little more and I treated half of the Russian hives with a 50% dose and the other half were left untreated.  I was wondering if the purported Russian attributes are real or hype.

-I do NOT monitor mite levels.  I found the test to be not that accurate.

-I have been tracking the survival of unwrapped versus wrapped hives. Wrapped hives have either a Bee Cozy wrap or are inside buildings.

-My goal, like everyone’s, is to be able to both replace my winter losses and any apiary size increases thru spits and not buy packages every year.

RESULTS TO DATE:

I lost 4 hives in the past 15 days. Total losses since October 1st are 11 of 44 hives.  25%!  Yikes, worse than last year and the winter is warmer and only half over.  But then, I didn't treat for mites in 50% of the Russian hives this year.  

Italian losses are at 25% (even with 100% mite treatment)

Russian losses are at 23% overall (but with no mite treatment or 50% mite treatment).

Carniolan losses are at 100%.   I had just one carni hive going into winter.  

Wrapped vs unwrapped.  

-Both categories have 25% loss.    

MAQS

I did not perform any mite checks.  I just either treated them or did not treat them. 

Italians and Carni's got the full MAQS dose.  Losses to date are 31%.

50% of the Russian hives received a 1/2 dose of MAQS.  Losses to date are 13%.

50% of the Russian hives received no treatment.  Losses to date are 33%.  

Winter Sugar Column (modified candy board)

Lost 5 of 15 hives with the sugar column or a 30% loss rate.

Lost 6 of 29 hives without sugar column or 21% loss rate.

NOTE: None of the hives with the sugar column received fall feeding. 

Fall Feeding

-Lost 4 of 22 that had fall feeding or 19% loss rate.

-Lost 7 of 22 that did not get fall feeding or 32% loss rate. 

Hive Age

Losses were in both 1st and 2nd year hives.  No significant difference noted.

  

Conclusions to date:

-Wrapping makes no difference at this point.  No difference was noted last winter either.  I will not buy any more wraps.

-Fall feeding definitely helped.  Next fall all hives will get fed.

-Russians are doing better than Italians, when the level of mite treatment is factored in.  

-Significantly better Russian survival (87%) when treated with half dose of MAQS versus no treatment (66%).  Next year I will probably treat Russian hives at either the full recommended dose or a 50% level.  I won’t decide on this until spring.

-Russians are not the MAGIC BULLET, but seem to be several steps above package Italians. 

-I need to get some software to analyze the data better and determine if any of the many combinations are statistically significant beyond what is obvious.