Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
• Using an ice cream scoop and waxed paper, scoop out about a hamburger-sized dose
of the finished mix and put it on a sheet of the waxed paper about twice the dose's
size. Add more paper and flatten. Freeze the patties until needed.
• Place one patty on your colony (leave the paper on the bottom) between the two
boxes with the most bees in them, as early in the spring as you can, and replace it
when most of it is gone. Continue adding these until your honey flow starts, then
quit until the honey flow is over.
• Add a patty in the fall, and have one in place for over-wintering.
• This recipe makes a lot of patties, so you may end up sharing with a friend.
Because sugar and shortening are essentially odorless to a honey bee, the honey
and peppermint act as attractants. You will find some colonies eat these patties rapidly,
whereas others are slow. If the bees are slow, add additional honey, sugar, and pepper-
mint to a new mix to increase attractiveness. A rare few will never eat them. If that
happens, leave them on anyway and hope for the best. It's all you can do for these bees.
Grease patties work well because the shortening, when on a young honey bee, con-
fuses female mites looking for a new host, and the rate of infestation in young bees
drops precipitously.
If you live in warmer areas, with winter temperatures that do not fall below freezing,
you can use Mite-a-Thol, available from bee supply catalogs. When placed in a colony,
these crystals evaporate into fumes that are deadly to mites, but not to bees or people.
Spring and fall applications may be needed, but never use them when honey supers are
on the colony. Follow the instructions on the label. If the weather is warm enough, they
are effective. If not, you've wasted time, money, and probably bees.
Occasionally, no matter what you do, a colony will succumb to these mites. This oc-
curs most often during the winter and very early spring. You find in your colony lots of
honey and few or no bees. Sometimes, you will find them in two, three, or more small
clusters in different parts of the hive.
Put the grease patty directly on the top bars, off center, and let the bees consume it. While
doing so, they'll pick up minute amounts of the grease, foiling further mite infestations.
Remove the colony from outside after brushing away any remaining dead bees until
you are ready to add new bees. But be certain the colony didn't perish from a disease
(AFB) before using the equipment. There are no remaining mites in a colony such as
this so recontamination on that count is not a problem.
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