Sunday, March 19, 2006

A little bit nervous and a little bit tired



I’m a little bit nervous and a little bit tired. Nervous because the spring is not coming and I had enough of this winter. In spite of the calendar and the forecast the temperatures are still low-midday the temperatures are not more than 8-9 C degrees. Tired because I worked a lot in my bee yard.
8 AM. Left for Capruta to see my bees. The temperature is 2 C degrees (but feel like 0 C Celsius). 9 AM. Arrived to my bee yard. The temperature is 4 C degrees. It’s to cold to work my bees.
In the back of the existing fence I planted plants to make a bushy fence. In August this will have flowers like one you can see in photo. These flowers have a lot of pollen. I did plant some prunes.
11 AM. Start working my bees. Except of 2 colonies all the hives are ok. and come out of the winter in good conditions. It was a difficult moment for me. What to do: to unite the 2 colonies or to let the alone. I decided to unite them because I don’t know what the weather will be and in the case that the bad weather will continue the colonies have no chances. Well, I come to a conclusion: I’ll raise all my queens from local bees. The queens raised in the plain are not good to winter on the hill.
The rest of the families are in good condition and plenty of capped brood.
Checking the dead hive I saw a lot of bees with deformed wings. Conclusion: the hive was heavy with that bastard named Varroa . Well, I was asking the many times if the bastard did not become resistant to the Varachet (Romanian drug for varroa). In my opinion varroa become resistant to this drug. I have read that the American biologist-Walker Jones- find out a fungus(Metarhizium anisopliae )agains varroa. It’s interesting idea. Waite to see when will be on the market.

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