Rodents are proving to be a bit troublesome this year. It was warm enough (about 15°C) to properly take the lid off of the hive with the mouse nest and remove the squatters. They'd made a lovely cosy nest on top of the crownboard in the WBC:
Two mice were in there but they skidaddled off having given me a bit of a hard stare for destroying their home. The weather is good enough now though and there are plenty of other places for them to live so I wanted to see what damage they'd done, having not had this issue before. Thankfully they don't seem to have ravaged their way through the hive:
The bees didn't seem remotely perturbed by the mice and apart from giving me a bit of a talking to about taking the hive apart they carried on calmly. I've clearly forgotten how to keep a smoker alight over winter which didn't help! Having left all the honey on after taking a bit in July, there was still loads of food which was great to see and hopefully will give the colony a positive start to the season.
I blocked the entrance with some bits of frame that were lying about (doesn't pay to be too tidy) but I'll get some proper blockers for this hive. The bees happily carried on bringing in pollen so I'm hoping the mice won't take up residence again...
Had 1 mouse in my hive in the autumn, checked before I put on mouse guards. What a lot of damage! But still will fit guards earlier next year! At least your bees are still ok
ReplyDeleteI know! These bees are really narky too and spend their whole time bashing your veil and trying to sting during the season. I think the mice were nesting in the cavity between the lifts and the boxes rather than in the combs themselves so perhaps that's why the damage wasn't too bad
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