Mite Testing, Treatments & Queen Banking transcript

so Molly's telling me that we're selling a lot of these mic checking kits right now we've got 27.50 on them in our store most major bee supply catalogs will carry them so I think they're really I think they're necessary for my treatments I always suggest people do a check before and then a check after kind of yeah it's really good to make sure that whatever treatment you did actually worked that's a mistake a lot of people make I've made it myself several times like with that apevar right there that you're standing beside about four years ago we spent eighteen thousand dollars on eight of our treatments for our bees and just assumed it had been working and then in September we could see that our we actually saw mites on bees in September so we started doing some might checks just to find out that our mic numbers had gone through the roof so it's really helpful to check after you treat not just before you treat I'm always really honest with our customer because you know like I don't want to tell them to buy something that's going to work so I do tell them about appreciate that but um well you know the message on this stuff is is it does have an effect but it's like a flat line it keeps I it for the most part what we're seeing is that it keeps the mic loads from going up quickly but it's not bringing the mic loads down well another thing I've noticed is I've had so many people come in here and you know they put eight of our strips in a year ago and they're still there oh no and that's really bad yeah that's a that's a fast track for resistance right there yep and I hear that all the time so yeah uh yeah some people just don't think so right now we're carrying formic Pro which uh under heavy demand uh just kept getting asked for it over and over and over so we're carrying that we're carrying a pivar because some people definitely want it yes and then we're carrying oxalic acid and Ox evap brand vaporizers and we got APA guard so so far the formic pro has been selling really well has it yeah I think people are a little scared about the temperature range and stuff right now because it's so flip-floppy here well and that's a legit concern too because APA guard's the same way you know the APA guard and formic Pro are very sensitive to heat and you got to understand how it works and use it correctly or you can fry a colony real quick yeah I always tell people that one year you have like a bad yeah two years I had real bad experience with formic Pro now that I understand it better I think I could do much better I haven't used it in a long time but now that I understand the mode of operation I'm sure we could do better with it but you know we're having really good luck with APA guard I've been using it off and on for 20 years so yes that is definitely so we buy it in these tubs try some formic Pro though Bob okay you want me to try forming Pro I just want to see what all the Rave is about okay well I'm getting away from the chemicals period um I like the organic acids because they leave no residue in the comb zero they're organic of course they don't contaminate the environment as long as you understand how they work I think they're great now this is just my personal choice I don't mean to tell other people what they have to do but we're not going to use apivar anymore it's really the only chemical that we stock and we simply stock it because people want to want it all the time so yep and I'm very honest with well that's the way to be yep Molly is slowly actually quickly turning into an expert on all this stuff you got any questions call the store and ask for Molly the other girls know about the bee equipment but Molly's becoming the expert I love bees she loves bees I just can't learn enough I'm here with Jesse today in front of our shop it's Saturday morning it's early nobody's here yet except for him and I and he's agreed to help me show a good example of how we check for mites I think it's really important this time of year it's late June it's important this time of year to really do some spot checking and make sure that our mites are under control we carry one of these kits in each truck this one's for the black truck which is the truck I drive most of the time got one in the brown truck and it's a simple kit we have an easy they're called varroa easy check let's see you got one let's see the label on that varroa easy check most these Supply outfits have them they're not too expensive we carry them real simple device it's just a plastic tub with a perforated basket inside and it's simple to use no big deal we like to use alcohol I know a lot of people are using windshield washer fluid soapy water we like to use alcohol and water maybe a little more expensive but I feel it's easier to use and does a pretty good job each kit has a bottle of alcohol a half cup measuring cup if you get that pretty level you've got real close to 300 bees just give or take a few we've actually literally counted them to make sure that that works and it does and they get some paper towels for cleaning up the mess and then a tupperware tub that we're going to dump these into just to show us how we do that I'm going to fill the container up halfway with liquid Now 50 alcohol 50 percent water works good and we do that a lot too I just happen to have plenty of alcohol here and no water so um 50 50 with water works too now let's hold that up so it won't make it Crystal Clear see if we can see the level about halfway works pretty good and there's two lines in that basket one is for 200 one is for 300 we go for the 300. do the container there to get a good sample uh we've got a colony over here that we're using as a queen bank so we're going to try to show two concepts here at the queen bank and the easy check so now you notice that with the frame there it's kind of got a little bit of space there and that's because of the the thickness of the cages in there but I've got two frames of brood in there I try to keep open brood next to it one on each side and we've modified a crane to fit the cell bar and as you can see they're all over the all over the Queens it's just a couple little blocks of wood to create a space for one of these jzbz bars these are the same bars that come in a queen shipping box or a queen Bank shipper and uh we always have a few extra Queens around for us for our own use each week we collect a bunch of Queens anywhere from 100 150 and we'll sell some of them and use some of them and it's Saturday morning nobody's working over the weekend so rather than keeping them in the box overnight we've chosen to put them in the queen bank and this bank is always queenless but it always has fresh brood going in it too so we're always adding young bees one of the keys to success here is Young bees they'll take really good care of those Queens you can see that they're growing cones yeah we got just a little bit of a nectar flow going on so they're they're happy [Music] that's a frame of open brewed there and some cat food that's emerging that's actually the perfect frame having open brood on it means there should be a good dominant number of nurse bees on it which is actually my understanding is actually the bees you want to test because the mites understand the mites that have hatched out of other cells kind of hang out in The Brood area waiting for the perfect opportunity to enter another cell just before it's going to be capped so they know to hang out on the nurse piece so if you're going to test for mites that's the best place to do it is to take bees from the open brood [Music] he used a frame of sealed brood there because that's all we have in that colony let's take all the bees down in the corner there [Music] and then it's about 300. go ahead and use these in there quickly and they are dead instantly and while those stats happening there I go ahead and try to get the bees back into the colony and get the colony buttoned up you can do this with a queen right Colony by having the the frame of Queens over an excluder as long as it's a good Colony but we feel it's safer in a queenless colony I've done them both ways when I roll this you can actually hear the barrel it's spinning inside there I'm gently rolling it but the wash is actually going through the holes pretty pretty good you're supposed to do this for a minute a lot of rocket out here on Saturday morning pretty soon the girls running the retail store will show up get ready to open up on a Saturday usually we get busy about 9 30 10 o'clock a little later than normal [Music] and so far we look pretty clean we did an apiguard treatment back in March I have a video showing us doing that to kind of keep swarming under control and I think that that Mar tape of guard treatment has really given us a leg up on the Mite situation I kind of changed my attitude about my treatments I no longer want a treat to bring my mic numbers down I want to treat so my mic numbers never get high if you get high mic numbers and the bees start to get viruses and things from high Mite numbers it really takes a while to get them clean and bring them back into shape as much as six weeks actually you might kill the mites quickly but all of that garbage that is vectored by the mites takes a while to get rid of we got one one you got one okay two two all right we did a couple mic rolls in this yard just to see where we stand and we got one might in one and zero in the other so I think we're doing pretty good let it still seeing just one yep okay so uh I'm not in a panic about mites at the moment anyway this uh this yard is full of dark red honey which suits me just fine that tulip popper and just put escapes on them and we'll see today is Wednesday so we'll probably come back Monday Monday and get him [Music] happy birthday to you [Applause] [Laughter] how old are you Seth how old are you 24. how old are you John 41 41. oh wow that's right yeah okay who's first John uh John and Seth okay