It's been strange to leave the bees alone for a whole fortnight after a long summer of checking them every weekend. We didn't know what to expect inside but it turned out everything was pretty much unchanged since our last inspection - I suppose the treatment must really slow them down!
The bees have emptied the tub of Thymol gel and spread it all around the hive. It doesn't smell of much to me, slightly like the liquid goop inside a cough drop. It seems to be doing the trick though - instead of finding 8 - 10 dead varroa mites each week there were well over 200 lying on the floor today!Nothing else seemed any different, they hadn't even done much wax-building apart from this:
It's a bit frustrating - a whole sheet they've only just begun to build on and one of them thought it would be a good idea to plonk a big old queen cup in the middle. These are often called 'play cups', and considered to be a bit like practise for making a real queen cell.
This picture above shows something interesting the bees do during every inspection. Those bees on the front porch with their bottoms in the air are also fanning their wings furiously but standing still. They are sending out a scented homing signal to any bees which may have been left outside the hive during the inspection. The house bees are not experienced fliers yet so can easily get lost if only a few feet from the hive so with all these bees on the front entrance sending out a strong pheromone signal there's a good chance that any stray bees could easily find their way back again. This system also works in an apiary with many hives because every colony has their own scent, as unique to them as a fingerprint!
