I worked the Bees today, I have been letting them alone as much as possible. Last week I bought some more equipment from Manns Lake, 5 new supers and frames, some sugar water supplement, and an " Organic " bee treatment strip for treating Varoa Mites. These strips come 2 in a tightly sealed plastic container and are wrapped in plastic. The warnings on the pac say that you should not put them on the metal top cover because they will eat a hole in it, don't get it in your eyes because it will make you blind, don't get it on your skin, and what ever you do don't eat it.
Maybe their idea of Organic is different than mine. Anyway, The Lady who I spoke to over the phone said this was the least of the poisons I could use to control mites so I bought it, it will kill 95% of the mites in your hive, some of the more powerful stuff kills 99% of the mites. A normal treatment said to use the 2 strips in your hive box between the 2 brood supers once a year. She told me that because my hive was new maybe I should just use one strip now and the 2nd one in 6 weeks. I decided to follow her advice. I took all the supers off, took the bottom entrance restrictor out of the hive [ Ventilation is very important during this process, if you don't allow enough air ventilation the bees can go crazy and kill the Queen , Like I said, this stuff is very " Organic " ] Oh, the stuff does not work if it is too hot and this is Aug, but this week looks good here though, today was 80* and the rest of the week is in the 70*s it works best below 84* and is no good above 95* . So I walked up tonight to see how they were doing, The Bees were all clustered at the bottom of the hive and around the entrance. One of the side effect they mentioned [ Besides possible killing the Queen ] is a thing they call Bearding, all the bees cluster together and look like a thick beard. That is what the bottom of the hive looked like tonight. Its either that or they were gasping for air because there was a strong smell and vapors coming from the strip when I put it in there. Either way they did seem to be alive, not moving a lot, but alive. I will see what tomorrow brings, I hope this stuff works.
Never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.