Tag Archives: varroa

Bee Chemotherapy – Part II

Have you noticed that whenever things don’t work out the way people want people frequently say, “Well, at least I learned a lot.”  “I learned a lot,” is a nice code phrase that lets people know that things didn’t go well at all but you are either choosing to be optimistic or you don’t want to share your problems with the world.  In Part I, I discussed how Doug and I were treating our bees with formic acid to lower the varroa mite levels.  In case you were wondering how things went with the treatment, all I can say is:  “Well, at least we learned a lot.” Continue reading

Bee Chemotherapy – Part I

All our bees are currently undergoing the beekeeping equivalent of chemotherapy.  In a previous post, I wrote about how our bees are infected with varroa mites.  (If you missed the post, you can reach it by clicking here.)  This week we treated  our eight hives with formic acid.  If you think beekeeping is all about singing sweetly to your bees while you happily collect honey, you would be wrong.  Sometimes beekeeping means you put on chemically resistant gloves and place acid inside your hives in the name of integrated pest management. Continue reading