Here we go with my first Blog, this hopefully will be a fun way of keeping you all informed of stuff which is happening in the my bee world. Well today was the day for the oxalic acid at my home apiary at Tintern. The important thing with doing the acid is the weather and after an early frost this morning a lovely sunny day, with the temperature at 5 degrees celicus was perfect. So firstly after working out wheather to use the syringe or the tricle bottle off we went with both methods in hand to give it ago.
The acid is to only be used once a year and when there is no brood in the hive, temperature has to be between 3 and 7 and you give 5ml per seem of bees. The aim is to kill the rest of the varroa whist it is on the bees and not hiding in the brood. Interestingly the is only a small percentage of acid the rest is sugar and water, so really just feeding the hive. Read more at this website. Well the first hive would have to be the most powerful of the 8 hives we did today, with an incredible 8 seems of bees to do. should of choose a weaker hive to start. A few came out to say hello, they were eating their candy nicely.
Well all went well and all the hives where done in no time. Somehow or another a bee managed to get up the back and my suit and sting me, that will teach me for not putting on the full suit and only the half suit. A few more bees where flying than I expected.
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