I am interested in what you are planning for your hive care this spring. We had about 2 weeks of unseasonably warm weather and they were out working the first blooms. Not warm ebough for the menthol treatment, too cold at night. I want them to be a strong hive this year and am curious when you might medicate. Yes, the mites are in this area. It is necessary to medicate the hive for them to survive here.

-- Anne (HealthyTouch101@hotmail.com), March 12, 2000

Answers

Anne, we've had an unusually early spring here in eastern Nebraska. Here's what I've done so far on a 70-degree day earlier this month: 1) checked over-wintered food supply and new brood pattern. 2) scraped off bottom boards and excess burr comb around frames. 3) reversed hive bodies on four of our five hives -- the fifth still had quite a bit of brood in the bottom hive body. 4) began feeding 1:1 sugar water.

If it warms back up into the 60s this weekend as forecast, I'll begin dusting with Terramycin and switch to sugar-water feed mixed with Fumidil B. (By the way, if you haven't tried it, a neat little trick I learned is to mix some food coloring with the medicated sugar water so if your bees store any, you can identify it.) So far I've been able to get by only using Apistan strips in the fall after taking off the supers. Good luck with your hives.

-- Rog (flanders@probe.net), March 22, 2000.

Thanks, that was a good reminder about the burr comb. I have used terramycin patties, but never dusted with it. How do you go about it? Do you dust each hive frame or just the top of each hive body/super?

-- Anne (HealthyTouch101@hotmail.com), March 25, 2000.