Sugar Rolls

I’ve been taking a Community Hive beekeeping course through the Environmental Youth Alliance here in Vancouver. They are able to offer the course free of charge (amazing!) to train youth how to keep bees in a sustainable way. The class size is small and the teacher, Brian Campbell of Blessed Bee Farms is an absolute fountain of knowledge about bees. He also has a sweet sense of humour!

Can you spot the queen?

We’ve been able to open up the hives each session and I have successfully (without a veil!) opened up a hive and examined the frames for brood and honey. It helps that Brian and the other students are there to look over each frame alongside me to try and identify healthy bee habits or any possible pests, diseases or other colony problems.

Today we did a hive inspection and checked for Varroa mites. Now I am no expert but I'll share what I know. The mites enter the brood cells before they are capped and feed off the bee’s food, and then the bee itself while it is pupating. They prefer drone cells as they stay capped for longer and therefore more mites can develop in the cell. 2-5 Varroa mites can emerge from one drone cell! They either hang onto an adult bee and feed off of their blood, or drift into another cell to reproduce again. Bees that were fed upon emerge smaller and have shorter life spans. They can also develop deformed wings while pupating with mites in their cell. An untreated Varroa infestation will lead to decreased bee population in the hive and eventually the death of the colony. So, Varroa mites = bad news.

The Varroa mites are large enough to be seen, especially if you are checking out a white larva. They are a reddish brown colour. In our hive inspection today I noticed one walking on the frame and someone else spotted a mite riding on one of the bees, so a Varroa mite count was in order.

Introducing the Sugar Roll.

Equipment needed: a 1 cup measuring cup, a soft bee brush, a small mason jar with a screened lid, a few tablespoons of powdered sugar and a large bowl.

Rolling bees.

Choose a frame that has lots of bees on it, some honey and some brood. Make sure that the queen is not on this frame and not part of the roll. With short, downward brush strokes you brush one cup of bees into the measuring cup. This is a hilarious thing to do. They will buzz around a whole bunch but I have yet to be stung during this process (although, I’ve only done it twice – third time’s a charm?) Tap the cup on the hive or ground to knock the bees gently down into the cup to be able to fill it up some more.

Pour your one cup of bees into the mason jar. Put on your screened lid and start to add some powdered sugar over the top. I had to break up the clumps and sort of push the sugar in through the mesh. The bees will be loud and sugar will blow out the top and you will laugh because it is so mesmerizing!

Roll the bees gently by turning the jar over and over in your hands. Do this for a few minutes.

Bees returned to the hive after the roll.

The sugar knocks the Varroa mites off of the bees. Some say it’s just the gentle abrasion that does it, some say it removes the charge that is helping to hold the mite on. Either way, it works.

Now, turn your jar upside down and “salt and pepper shake” (a technical term) the sugar out of the jar. The mites will all fall out of the jar along with the powdered sugar. Start counting mites. Remembering that there are approximately 300 bees in a cup, you need to see what ratio of mites to bees you have in your hive. Anything higher than 1% or 3 mites to 300 bees should be acted upon.

In today’s test we found 10 mites for only ½ cup of bees. Which is around 6%, which is high. So we treated our hive with a formic acid treatment. Here’s hoping we get the mite population down before the hives go into winter mode.

You can return your sugared bees to the hive where their bee friends will never believe what happened. 

Tell me what you know about Varroa mites! So fascinating.