Chinquapin Honey LLC

10/23/2026

Fall MITE TREATMENT.
I began the mite treatment with thymol in mid-June. By late August I added varroxsan which brings me to a predictable mite load to the present day. I just finished the first round of OAV and at 48 hours the mite DROP on the IPM board is as follows: Hive #2 is 7 amd hive #3 is 50. Repeat in 3 days. This is a very low mite count. I will pull some historical data graphs to show what first round drops looked like and they were in the high hundreds and TNTC. this is the second season that i have used varroxsan at this time and it does a lot to prepare my apiary for winter.

09/20/2026

I am seeing a few posts about Formic Acid use across the state….. but, it is the end of September. There is just no way I would use it at all and never in the fall….if you kill your queen, whacha gonna do? No drones and no cheap mated queens to be had. I stopped using FA in any form, years ago.

08/18/2026

I didn’t know this…..i use it solely as smoker fuel.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbvTOr2u1Xc/

08/17/2026

The bees stopped the excessive bearding yesterday but I noticed that after the constant outside occupation un the sme place they had left wax in the side of the hive….

08/17/2026

I go in almost never!
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1BbooRLSjX/

08/11/2026

Varroxsan application yesterday, and they have been staying out side ever since….

08/09/2026

They did not like me going in to their hive(s) today. Today was the first time i went in deeper than looking at a frame in the top box. I have yet to do a full inspection this year and last year for that matter, I think. There must be something to not disturbing the colonies every week or every several weeks.

I went in only to verify brood in the bottom and middle box and only looked at a frame for capped brood, larva and eggs, so I could add the varroxsan. The top boxes were chock a block full of the honeydew. Gross.

I thought there was something going on with #2 for the last week, second from the right (I have been in New Hampshire most of July). My explanation was I forgot to flatten the corner of an apiguard tin in June, so it was stuck to the bottom of the ventilator box. When it came time for the 2nd application, I found that tin still had thymol in it. I added the 2nd dose anyway. [ #2 was the only colony that swarmed because it was the strongest in population and honey production.]

I think the queen shut down for a while according to what I found in the literature so what I was seeing was a good brood break in my most robust colony. Looking at a frame from mid and bottom boxes, I was satisfied with the amount of open brood and this explanation was as good as any.

08/09/2026

SPOTTED LANTERN FLY HONEYDEW is godawful!

I went in today to remove the apiguard tins and add the varroxsan strips. I could tell something was very very wrong. The beautiful hive smell was gone. In its place a revolting alien smell that can only be associated with the spotted lantern fly honey dew. As you can see it is darker and there is a lot of it. Smells terrible. Spread that on a piece of toast.

What I saw in the apiary today were hives that are honeydew bound and brood chambers pushed down in the colony.

There was a lot of cleanup involved here. This mite treatment shoukd take me well into late October when I go through my OAV regimen for the season for a near zero mite load for winter.

08/05/2026

Here is the .stl file for the SHB smasher. I am going to modify this design make it a little longer.

this is used on the top of the beehive frames to smash hive beetles.

07/30/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1SNF3nzXQB/