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I have long been of the opinion that
if work were such a splendid thing
Another day of working on the curriculum. I was about burned out this afternoon and ready for a break, when Medhat called and said he was coming by with some Apistan®. Apparently the bee samples we took the other day have shown increased levels of varroa since the treatment. When we considered the data, we discovered that the hives (except for one) that have higher levels are in expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam) boxes. Maybe this is a coincidence, and maybe not, but it is not a huge stretch to conclude -- tentatively -- that these hives raise brood earlier and later than the others, and thus incubate more varroa. Also we can conclude that these hives still had lots of brood when Medhat treated them, and that the increase in mite population had come out with emerging bees since the treatment! We have no measure of the other hives that had low levels, since we did not sample them. I suppose we could, now, but we would not be able to compare, except roughly, to the ones we sampled a second time a while ago (in the red cells below), since time has passed. I present here the same chart that I presented earlier, this time marking the polystyrene hives and showing the increase in mite load. (see red cells). The wooden hives have not yet been wrapped. I have always been of the opinion that one should wait until mid-October to wrap, and that the bees need to feel some cool weather and cut back. Others think that early wrapping is best. One thing for sure; I can see that people who rushed to apply oxalic before November are making a mistake. The broodless period does not start until about then. If what we think we see is true, hives that are warm -- insulated like the styro hives -- raise brood longer and need to be treated even later. We see bees cleaning floors often in December and January, and for oxalic evaporation, temps around 2 to 5 degrees C are ideal. We gets lots of days like that in Winter. Seems to me that there is no rush. Comments?
The hives in grey boxes are this year's Australian packages and have never been treated. Those in pink are overwintered hives that have not been treated since the spring before this past one. At that time, they got one strip of Apistan®. Today : Sunny with cloudy periods. Wind becoming south 20 km/h this morning. High 7. / Tonight : Cloudy periods. Low minus 2. / Normals for the period : Low minus 5. High 8.
I updated up my formic and oxalic page a bit. Anyone have any good pages that should be mentioned there? Write me, and let me know.
Today is Chris' 30th birthday, so El & I went to Chris and Jeans' for supper.
Another day working on the curriculum. I got a lot accomplished.
The above info, formatted for printing Today : Sunny. High 5. / Tonight : Clear. Wind west 20 km/h becoming light this evening. Low minus 11. / Normals for the period : Low minus 6. High 7.
Another day at the desk. We've been discussing oxalic treatments quite a bit lately, and some of us think that the evaporation methods show the most promise. Some consider manual methods like the Varrox® evaporator to be too slow and difficult to use, and have built devices to speed up application. Of course, we are all wondering what works best, and if there are possibilities of damaging the bees.
Today : Sunny with cloudy periods. Wind southwest 20 km/h. High 12. / Tonight : A few clouds. Wind becoming south 20 km/h overnight. Low minus 2. / Normals for the period : Low minus 6. High 6.
Another day of working on the curriculum. It should actually be finished by now, but, as a project like this gets bigger, progress slows, since remembering what already has been covered and exactly where it is gets difficult. MS Word is good for this kind of work and the advanced features that most of us never use come in handy. Apparently MS Publisher is used in the final publication of these curricula, not Word, and apparently, although Publisher can read MS Word files, other MS programs cannot read Publisher's native file format. That has made getting access to some of the material slow, as well. I've considered purchasing a copy of Publisher, but have not been sure if it is worth it. We went to the Mill for supper. It turned out that P-Ss have Publisher 2002 on their computer, and I just happened to have a copy of my work on the 256 MB data key in my pocket, so I loaded it up. I played with it for a while, but came to the conclusion that Publisher is crippled - compared to Word. Today : Sunny with cloudy periods. Wind becoming southwest 30 km/h gusting to 50 this morning. High 14. / Tonight : Cloudy periods. Wind southwest 30 km/h gusting to 50 becoming light this evening. Low minus 4. / Normals for the period : Low minus 6. High 6.
Another day of writing and correcting. I want to get this curriculum job sewed up by Sunday night, when I plan to be at the Fantasyland Hotel. The ABA convention starts Monday morning, and I see that Monday breakfast is included.
I added a picture to the oxalic links on Thursday's comments (above). Today : Cloudy with sunny
periods. 40 percent chance of flurries this morning. High 4 with temperature
falling to minus 3 this afternoon. /
Tonight : Cloudy. Low minus 8. / /
Normals for the period : Low minus 6. High 6.
The ABA convention starts tomorrow. Click here for some general Edmonton and West Edmonton Mall info.
I planned to work on the curriculum all morning and head up to the convention mid-afternoon. There are some loose ends to tie up and I figured to get quite a bit done. Yesterday was quite productive. That didn't work out. First, Bert came over for a beehive wrap, then Grant and Shirley showed up to talk furnaces. I visited a bit, then got back to work. While I was working, rain and snow starting to fall, and wondered if I should head out early. I checked the forecasts, and they seemed to indicate that, although the South was getting weather warnings, my route to the North would be okay, and I stuck to my plan. I was just finishing up, when MS Word aborted a save and I lost the day's work, since it was saving over top of the previous copy. I keep quite a series of backups, and am glad I did, but I did lose a few hours. Not my best day. I left at 3 PM drove to Edmonton. I was wary about the driving conditions and had remarked, before leaving, that the bridges might be slippery. Sure enough, the one at Equity was, and the car wandered a bit, but straightened out. The Merc is rear wheel drive, and the van is FWD, so I have to remember which I'm driving. The response to a skid is different - opposite - between RWD and FWD. Along the way there were cars in the ditch and ambulances and police everywhere. I guess I should have driven up in the morning. Anyhow, I arrived and settled in. Turns out there is free high speed here, but it is unencrypted. I wonder how big a risk that is.
Today : Cloudy. 30 percent chance of flurries this morning. Wind becoming southeast 20 km/h this morning. High 2. / Tonight : Clearing this evening. Low minus 8. / Normals for the period : Low minus 7. High plus 5.
The convention is well-attended, and it is good to see everyone. I'll be writing something on this when I have the time. Today: Sunny with cloudy periods. High 12. / Tonight : Cloudy periods. Wind southwest 20 km/h becoming light this evening. Low minus 2. / Normals for the period : Low minus 7. High plus 5.
Tuesday : A mix of sun and cloud. 30 percent chance of flurries or rain showers. High plus 4. << Previous Page Next Page >>
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