Ladies and Gents, do you sometimes feel you have to write your other half a written proposal as to why they should take a regular shower? Well, itchy man syndrome is not just isolated to the human race. The poor lady worker bees are in a similar situation, their men have crabs.
Well not the sort of crabs that get human pants itching, the crabs in question here are a mite called Varroa and it's driving the beekeeping world crazy. These nasty little critters cause all sorts of problems such as Deformed Wing Virus and in severe cases can completely screw over your entire colony. So it's important to keep on top of them and treat the hive with one of the variety of treatments out there. If you are new to Beekeeping, your supplier will be more than helpful with which best to choose and all are relatively simple to administer.
This nasty little mite unfortunately has a preference for the drones (bee talk for Man bee).. So after seeking advice on how to treat our hive from a more experienced keeper, we were told to treat the hive with a chemical treatment called Apistan (or Happy Stan which is how I remember it). Once the treatment has had 6 weeks to work, we then needed to kick the poor drone brood to the curb. This was to make sure we were getting rid of the majority of the last of the mites. It's not a pretty job, it made me feel quite sad - and I did commit a few acts of mercy if I could see the drown actually hatching out of the cell at that moment. I just checked him over and sent him on his way. But a regular an intermittent cry of "Sorry Dudes!" could be heard from inside my hood.
The female workers are like 40000 Anthea Turner's, constantly cleaning, feeding, shopping for nectar etc (Sound familiar?). Any dead brood that I hadn't managed to clean out properly, you could see the girls immediately heading for that cell to drag out the larva / Pupa and chuck it out of the hive. It's the biggest collective case of OCD you will ever witness, those girls need a rest, a facial and wing rub.
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