I hate making decisions.
1. The honeyflow from blackberries is done at my house. So it's time to reduce the entrances to about three inches. That decision was easy.
2. I did alcohol washes on four of my five hives. Two had zero mites. One had 6 and another 9 (for a half cup of bees). Zero mites no treatment. 6 and 9 mites : formic pro.
Problem? The two hives with mites were superhives. 9 frames of capped brood in each hive. Bees covering all the frames in two ten frame deeps. They really need to get split or do they? The decision was whether to split first and then treat or treat first. I decided to treat first and almost certainly I will split. I don't have any weak hives to move frames into.
Disconcerting (i.e. confusing) was that with all that capped brood there was virtually no eggs and very little young larva even though there was room for her to lay. The fact that I found a little young larva makes me believe I have a queen. I know the queen will be laying less and less from now on but I didn't expect to see virtually none. Maybe she's taking a rest.
Of course, I made a few mistakes. I put the two formic pro pads on between the two brood boxes which is where they really need to go. I remembered to stuff the vent tubes closed but forgot to put the bottom board in! I'll do another alcohol wash about a week after the formic pro is done. The queen often stops laying when formic pro is on and sometimes she even dies. So I'll have to check for that, too.
Beekeeping isn't easy....