Big weekend. I treated with Apiguard all the hives I previously treated with powdered sugar. I harvested several frames of honey from one of my new hives this year (a rarity to get honey from a brand new hive) and took four frames from one of the commercial hives so I could get the Apiguard packet on top of some brood frames. I'll have a video of Apiguard treatment posted in a couple days.
The honey is much darker than the sage honey I harvested on July 4. This honey is dark amber, like Guiness beer. I think it's probably a mix of nectar from sumac, California buckwheat, California Pepper Tree, and Eucalyptus (we've got some early blooming Euc's in the area).
Just got an email newsflash that further implicates the varroa mite in Colony Collapse disorder, so I'm going all out this year to control these little vermin. All out, that is, without resorting to actual miticides or other poisons...
To that end, I tested a new gizmo to see if it would make powdered sugar treatments easier. It's a bellows I got from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm. The jury's still out on its efficacy, as you can see from this video:
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Nice video, I have not tried the bellows yet, kinda waiting to see how everyone is doing. I did read one report that said they work much better if only 1/2 cup of sugar is used at a time. Also would it work better if you turned the nozzle so that the sugar reservoir is vertical to the bellows ?
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