Blog
During the height of the Zika scare last summer, officials of Dorchester County in South Carolina used aerial spraying to combat the Zika virus-carrying mosquito. The unintended consequence of deploying the insecticide Naled during daylight hours resulted in the death of millions of bees and literally wiped out entire apiaries.
How do you track the health of the bees or track the progress of the honey flow? We've learned much about our bees using a WiFiHive scale to gauge the health of the hive by watching daytime vs nighttime weights in the fall and tracking the weight during the summer honey flow.
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Bees congregate around their queen during the cold winter months shivering their flight muscles to produce heat so the hive stays warm and the queen can lay eggs.
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Our bees are showing a perfect pattern of bee behavior during the winter months. According to the WiFI HIve scale, the bees are strong in both resources (honey and bee numbers.
Thermal imaging is one of the only tools you may have at your disposal when it is too cold to open and inspect the bees. One of our hives looks like it may not make it through into spring based on the fact that the bees are clustering near the top of the hive.
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