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 drone larvae with two varroa mites
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