A friend sent me this today It's rather perfect.

Today I have a nice image of how Alex is feeding the hungry hives. The boxes are offset in order to easily slip the nozzle into the lower feeder before filling the one in the top box.

It looks like we'll have another shipment of syrup coming in during the next week, so let us know if you're interested in coming by to pick up winter feed. We sell it by the bucket or barrel.

Ether rolls have shown a big jump in mite counts as the later brood emerges. Instead of 5-10 in the jar as we had in past weeks, he's encountering 15-20 more regularly. One had over 70. Several yards are getting another Apiguard treatment. Hopefully we can do some good in those locations before the temperature drops too much to intervene.

All of our bees got their Apiguard treatment before the beginning of October, so hopefully we'll have some strong colonies going into winter. A stretch of rainy weather in the second half of September slowed down Alex's efforts to get them all treated. Happily, there are signs that many of the hives will have another cycle of young bees to help them get through the winter.

Here is an excellent frame of October brood--something we can't always count on in an Iowa autumn:

Now that mites are taken care of to the best of our ability, the next step is to push the feed into the colonies that need some more weight in order to survive. It is going to take quite a bit of syrup to see some of them through the cold months. A number of the hives further from home have division board feeders in top and bottom. Check out the populations that some of them are carrying into winter:

We normally winter in two deeps, but there were a couple of medium boxes that still had brood in them, so they'll probably stay out through winter. But again---lots of bees!!!