Good Trip

I snipped the top of the sachet and poured out white powder. I cooked up what I needed. Two syringes in our hands, MrsM and I slipped into a deserted spot behind a high hedge to drop some acid. For the first time I can remember, the sun was shining...

Well... Its the season of melodrama and double-entendre, that's my excuse. And it's the only day between October and March I'm likely to lift the lid on the hive, so it had to be today's picture. I particularly like the long shadows, even shining through some wings - it's not often I see bees in morning light this low. In the season, it would be around 5am!

Our hope is that the miserable, cold, dark weather we have endured encouraged the colony to cluster close and keep each other warm, and discouraged the queen from laying. We hope that there is as little developing brood as possible, within which any young Varroa parasites might be hiding. We sprinkled the bees with a sugar syrup: 50/50 sugar to water, gently warmed to help it dissolve. In it was dissolved some crystals of Oxalic acid - precisely weighed to create a 3.2% solution w/v of the active ingredient. We used the syringes to measure and trickle exactly 5ml of the solution along each seam of bees

This is not folklore. It is all based on properly conducted scientific trials that have identified the best combination of concentration, volume and timing. The acid causes the mites to fall from the adult bees and die. Any young mites concealed in the developing brood will escape - hence the midwinter timing, when brood area is at its lowest, to make the treatment as effective as possible. If we have succeeded, the colony can begin the new season with the lowest possible population of the parasite. Happy new year

Home to hot cocoa. Caffeine is a drug, but not one that will loosen my grip on reality. For an hour or two, the sun really was shining