This is my review of the Varroa EasyCheck from Veto-Pharma. I like to keep up on my mite counts. Treating for mites when they have crossed threshold is one of the best ways to keep your bees happy and healthy. But counting your mites can be intimidating for new beekeepers and seasoned ones alike. Veto-Pharma has designed the Varroa EasyCheck with the goal of taking any guesswork out of the process. The Product The EasyCheck is a clear plastic container with a yellow plastic l

June 4.....opened up the hives to check things out and found 2 false queen cells in the box above the deeps. Scraped them off but I failed to open the bottom deeps. I added queen excluders and honey supers because things were filling up in one hive rather quickly. I thought that I might be able to do a split, but didn't. The other hive is a little slower but productive. June 19th.....I was mowing the yard considering getting back into the hives when I noticed thousands of bee

OMG! My bee colony is growing so quickly. 2 weeks ago I checked the medium frames I added. They were doing very nicely. 2 outside frames in each upper box were full of honey and being capped and the frames next to them were being drawn. They middle frames were full of eggs, larvae , and capped brood. And, lot's of bees! So I did find what looked like queen cells on the bottom of some frames. Now that made me a little nervous. Will they swarm, I wondered. Are the frames gettin

"Holy Smokers!" Bob returned May 20th to help install the nucs into our Langstroth hives. It was a warm, sunny afternoon, so the bees were very happy and calm. The afternoon hour was a plus too, since many of the worker bees were out foraging, thus reducing the number of bees among the hive frames. We wanted to keep our work time short (so not to cause undo stress and chaos among the bees), but we did give each frame a quick look-over to check hive strength and health as we w

It's been a BEEzy couple weeks! A few days after receiving my second package (more on that another time), I got a call from a neighbor while I was at work. A bit unusual, so I checked the voicmail ... ... he had a swarm! Immediately my mind began running, thinking of all the fascinating information from Ryan's Swarm Presentation. What could I do to get the swarm? I didn't have the extra equipment for a third hive, and I know sometimes these swarms act quickly. It would be hou