Formic Acid pads on!

Today I followed through with my instincts and treated both of my full hives which are located at my house. I did a quick inspection for both hives and then put my spacer piece and my Mite Away II formic acid pads on top of both brood chambers. I closed the top of the hive so that air does not flow freely. I also completely opened the front of the hive. All of those things are per the instructions.

When going through the green hive, which was by yesterdays count; the most heavily infected, I found a frame which I had forgotten about. For some reason the bees built this comb as one sided with a bee space behind. You probably should take a better look at the picture bellow to understand. Anyways, since the bees decided what size of cell that they wanted, they made it in drone cell. Which may be a source of all those mites. The mites love/prefer drone cells because they have more room. This is a ton a drones! This is a pretty good indication that the hive is vigorous. They do not start to raise drones until they are comfortable with their stores; I hope this does not mean that they plan on swarming.

 I took the opportunity to rip out all of the drone brood on this frame. This will automatically kill a lot of mites. Drones do not do anything but eat honey and breed queens; and I do not want either of those two things happening yet! I will have to see if they start putting comb on this frame properly. I may have to try to re-coat it with wax. The other side had young brood in it so I left it.

The formic acid pads will be removed on May 6th. They sit on the hive for 3 weeks. I tossed the spent wax in the field. You should always throw out wax far way from your hives so you do not encourage pests to seek out your hives.