Finally made it on site.
I decided mid month was the time to do the sugar dusting of the bees for varroa mite issues.
I thought I would cut back on using the smoker. Last couple of visits I have not used the smoker and I didn't use it during this visit.
When I opened the top brood box there were quite a few bees on the cover milling about, doing I don't know what.
With each brood box I pulled each frame and held it in one hand and used the other hand to dispense powdered sugar using a baby powder container. That works quite well! The bees would immediately begin cleaning up the sugar and would also start grooming themselves. There buzzing also quieted down when the sugar was being dispensed
This particular process took a little longer than I thought, but it was much more thorough than just putting sugar on the top bars and sweeping it in between frames.
Since I was causing so much disruption in the hive by doing this process I didn' get many photos of the frames.
The bottom brood box had nine frames in use. The outer frame on each side, had only the inner side of the frame in use. It looked like the bees were leaving those areas clear because so many bees were on the sides of the hive fanning in those areas of the frame.
Otherwise the remaining frames looked good, with capped brood and larvae. I didn't look for new eggs, because I saw the queen in the top brood box.
The top brood box has six frames in use, with capped brood and larvae. There are several frames that have drone cells along the bottom of the frames. Looks like they do that because its easier to build bigger cells in that area.
While dusting each of the brood boxes I did my best to spot ants, hive beetles and wax moth and so far I didn't see any of them. So the girls are doing a great job of house keeping.
I am still looking into what I can do about tracheal mites. I don't really want to go with chemicals.
I showed a local beekeeper some photos I took of today's visit and described to him what I was seeing in the hive and he suggested that I should put a honey super on the hive to keep the girls busy. So tomorrow I will put one on and see how things progress. I still have not received my queen excluder so I will put the super on and hope for the best.
Heres a few photos...
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