Saturday 12th June
No photos this time - I was in a real hurry because I only had a short time to get this job done. I'd had to abandon the shop for a while mid-morning, so I was rushing through this to get back there.
I removed every single frame with sealed brood from the nuc with the varroa mites (N2, now known as Blue 2) and replaced them with empty frames - this means losing a lot of bee brood but now the only varroa mites present in this colony are the ones surviving on adult bees - and they are now ready to find new cells to infest.
This left two frames of unsealed brood and stores, which I moved to the centre - these are now the bait frames, being the only place where all the hatched varroa mites can breed.
I closed up the nuc and left it, placing all the removed frames in the freezer.
I'll come back later today when I have more time and feed this colony - they don't have many stores left and they'll need a lot of energy to build up the wax foundation on those 5 empty frames.
These two bait frames will be removed in ten days, eradicating every single varroa mite still left in this colony.
My error previously must have been removing the bait frame too late - a portion of the brood must have already hatched and released the varroa before I removed it.
