Queen cells in October
I inspected my hive today and noticed that I have two queen cells on the between the two brood boxes. I am a bit surprised. This hive has been struggling with mites. In august I treated with apiguard and the mites went from 3/300 to 30/300. I started treating with OA vapor every 4 days. The hive has a small problem with deformed wing virus; I see about a dozen bees every day in the grass in front of the hive. I have maybe 50% coverage in the upper box . They haven't completely capped the cells. Any suggestions?
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It's interesting that I had the same Mite counts as you indicated using Apiguard in August (actually worse >40/300). I then went to OA vapor every 6-7 days. I just completed my 4th treatment last week. I did not do a mite check after every treatment (don't want to kill to many) but I do monitor the IPM board for the number of mites. After the first OA treatment I noted hundreds of mites on the board. On each successive treatment I noted a SIGNIFICENT reduction in the number of mites on the board. With the 4th treatment I maybe only saw 7 mites on the board. In the coming weeks, when the weather is warm again. I will do a alcohol wash to see how effective this has been. Dave Schultz and did a visual inspection of this hive last week and the bees looked very healthy.