Russian bees were brought to this country due to their proven ability to overwinter and tolerate V.destructor. Many of us tried them and now have them in our apiaries. That does not mean buying a Certified Russian queen, nuc or colony and expecting that tolerance to continue into future generations is accurate. As soon as a certified Russian queen becomes ill, ages, dies or is for whatever reason replaced by one of her daughters, local genetics start to erode that tolerance.
Last year I bought a certified Russian nuc. Something was not right about her highness and they were the nastiest bees I have ever experienced. I know the problem was my exact queen as 2 of my friends bought nucs at the same time and their colonies were – and still are – gentle and easy to work. My queen, however, must have had the nastiest pheromone known to bees and it was not uncommon for me to have hundreds if not over a thousand bees on me shortly after opening the hive for inspection. Yes, I should have returned her but she was unmarked and very adept at hiding. I tolerated her until the day I luckily saw her scampering for cover, caught her and happily crushed her with my hive tool! Now queenless, I allowed the bees to raise her daughter who they ended up replacing this summer by raising, a now 2nd generation, Russian queen. The hive remained pleasant, tho’ not a huge honey producer.
Meanwhile, the mite counts in my apiaries, monitored via 24 hour mite drop on sticky boards, have been low all year and I did not have to treat until August when, due to low kill rates, I only did 2 rounds of OAV . Now jump to yesterday when I decided the weather was perfect for doing the final OAV treatment of the year. It was sunny but only mid-forties, keeping most of the bees in the hive. As brood production has basically halted, treating now allows the bees to go into winter with a minimal mite load. Below are the results after 20 hours of treating the 4 hives in my home apiary. The nucs were treated today and are not included, nor is our out yard which still requires winter prep.
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Given that there are probably a minimum of 15-20,000 bees in each of the Carniolan hives, I believe they all had a low mite load prior to treatment. The Russians have 12-15,000 bees so their pretreatment load appears considerably higher. Naturally, the counts will increase over the next few days and I hope to report what the counts are after 3-7 days, as well. What I found surprising is the apparent significantly higher mite count seen in the Russian hive (≥ 4%) – especially when compared to Hive 1 (≥0.4%) which has not had any kind of chemical treatment since the final OAV dose Nov, 2016. Did the Russians have a higher mite load prior to treatment, are they simply more hygienic or is there a different reason?
Please note: Each of the hives experienced a brood break sometime during the 2017 season to raise a new queen.
Granted, this is a VERY small number of hives but, to me, the take away is it makes great sense to monitor and treat EVERY hive, regardless of the race of bees, to keep them as healthy as possible during the cold months coming. Just because it’s a Russian hive does not mean you do not have to treat it. Further, the tolerance of my Russian bees has been diluted after 2 generations of daughters. Should this queen survive winter, I will place her in a nuc next year and replace her with a Certified Russian Queen.
Other Winter Preparations
Last weekend, in preparation for yesterday’s OAV treatments, I inspected each of the colonies in our home apiary (4 hives, 4 nucs) and equalized the amount of honey stores throughout the apiary. Pretty easy to do as it really meant pulling frames from most of the hives so that every colony goes into winter as the equivalent of 2 deeps and a medium. All except the Russians, who are very frugal with their stores and are now configured as a deep with 2 mediums. I do need to still pull 2, now empty, mediums off of one of the nucs and replace it with 2 mediums of honey from my stash of 30 honey frames. All of the colonies now have quilt boxes on them for moisture and ventilation and are ready to be wrapped with roofing (tar) paper.
This week, if weather permits, I’ll visit the 2 hives and 2 nucs at our out yard at Hillside Springs Farm (Cheshire County’s “Farm of the Year”) and put them to bed. Then it’s clean the smokers and hive tools, repair some hive bodies and head to the wood shop to make Christmas presents. It’s been a great season – actually our best ever. The bees produced over 200 lbs of honey, we were honored to make 96 wedding favors for Chris’ and Heather’s wedding, we gave away and sold some nucs and hives while still increasing our apiary by 2 hives and 3 more nucs, raised new queens in all of the hives and harvested our first ever peaches and apples. A nice year indeed for our little Honey Meadow Farm!
I hope you had a great season, that you listened to and learned from your bees, that they are contentedly buzzin’ and now ready to be tucked in for winter. I still want to post about my experience with Broodminder and how the data it provides helps me with apiary management. Between Broodminder and Hive Tracks, I now have all the info I need for my bees at my fingertips. More soon…
72 Hour Update
Here are the mote drop counts after 72 hours…
New Hampsha' Bees 
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