![]() ![]() To our surprise, despite there being a decent nectar and pollen flow over the course of the next two months (during which we also fed plenty of syrup and pollen sub), the buildup of most of the colonies was immediately arrested (whereas that of those in nearby yards continued on normally). I didn’t expect to see any particular effect from the inoculation, since we had chosen only thriving, building colonies for the experiment (a test of various essential oil products, as yet unpublished). So I created an inoculum by collecting about fifty apparently-healthy bees from the entrance of each of the hives, combining them all, homogenizing them in a blender, filtering the homogenate, mixing it with syrup, and then dribbling a portion back over the cluster in each of the 48 hives. But to the time-conscious beekeeper desperate to put patties into a thousand hives during rainy weather there is always the temptation to just throw them in and try to ignore the gruesome sound of bees being crushed as you close the hive.Ī couple of years ago, in preparing a group of 48 healthy hives for a trial, I wanted to equalize the presence of inapparent pathogens throughout the group. We all love our bees, and most beekeepers go out of our way to avoid killing any, not only out of respect for their lives, but also because the release of alarm pheromone may trigger increased stinging. My question is, to what degree such inadvertent crushing of bees affect colony health? It would have been even worse had I then lowered the upper box. ![]() I raised this patty back up after placing it on top of the bee-covered top bars, to show the ugly aftermath. To date, I’ve gotten best results by cracking open the brood chambers and placing patties on the top bars, where depending upon patty thickness and the amount of burr comb on the wood, they squish to fit.Ī problem arises when one is feeding hundreds of hives a day, especially in cool weather–what to do about the bees clustered on the top and bottom bars? It can take a while to get the bees to move out of harm’s way, and under the pressure of time, one may be tempted to just go ahead and squash a few bees (Fig. Each has its advantages and disadvantages (which I continue to investigate). There are a number of ways to feed supplementary protein to a colony-in patty form under the lid or between the brood chambers, in liquid form, or in dry form outside the hive. One concern that I have with the feeding of pollen sub is whether inadvertently crushing bees when you place the patties could lead to transmission of pathogens within the hive. ![]()
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