October

Thermal IR imaging nests – film.

During the winter preparations the bee colony will usually weaken because some older- exploited bee foragers will die. Fewer wintering bees mean less need for supplies. Bees do not need to heat the observation bee hive in winter, so it is not a threat to them in our Windowbee Hive. October and November  are the months of healing bees against Varroa mite in conventional bee hive.
The colonies living in WindowBee hives do not require  any treatment against Varroa! See the description of bee diseases in the section of warroa! Bees reared in these hives are self-healed from the parasite invasion. Colonies after one year from settling in the hive show no signs of infection! Observations have been recorded since 2007. No colony settle down in WindowBee® hive has been re-invaded. We suspect that the reasons of this are:

• Very dry winter conditions  in the apartment,
• Low ratio of raising drones to workers,
• Shorter bee development period to 20.5 days.

All of this causes in increased mortality of the mites and reduced reproductive ability of the female parasite!