Whirlwind Year Comes to a Close

It's with a heavy heart that I report that our Yellow Queen hive absconded last month. Absconding is when the entire colony of bees leaves a hive. Absconding this late in the season is usually a result of high Varroa mite levels. Reports of unusually high mite counts were reported in October in Washtenaw County this year.

It's been a crazy year for bees with outstanding Spring honey production, a lack of a late summer dearth, and tragically high Varroa mite counts late in the season.

The good new is that we were able to do an Oxalic Acid dribble on our remaining hives and to feed them 2:1 sugar syrup to prepare them for winter. We currently have 6 hives that we will be overwintering on November 4th (weather permitting).

My thanks to all who were able to volunteer this year with the Flow Hives. We will still need a few checks on the hives over the winter, but mostly we'll be leaving the bees alone for the winter. Hope to see you again next year!

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Our next Flow Hive check will be Saturday, November 4th at 10am in the A2B2 Teaching Apiary in the Campus Farm Area of Matthaei Botanical Gardens.

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If you would like to join the A2B2 Flow Hive Team or would like to know more about the Flow Hive in general, please contact Jen Haeger at [email protected].