#3GoodThings – #47

(Written Wednesday, March 6, 2019)

Today’s picture (below) makes me a bit sad… but in true #3GoodThings manner… let’s try to find the good.

Given the explanation involved, exceptionally, I’ll limit myself to a single scenario today, but I’ll tell you the #3GoodThings I learned from it.

Let’s get started…

Today’s #3GoodThings

See the photo below? It makes me a bit sad. It’s a dead young bee that I found on the landing board today. There are two things wrong with it:

(Arrow 1) points to a dark spot. It’s a varroa mite. All hives have them, it’s a question of keeping their numbers in check.
(Arrow 2) shows an atrophied wing. This is a sure sign that the bees are experiencing pressure from the mite population.

Since I know that all hives have mites, I knew it was just a matter of time until they made an appearance in mine.

I had a choice… I could allow myself to get angry, frustrated or despondent (The threat is real… too many mites can cause a colonie to completely collapse… AND… a person who “bends to negative” quickly envisions the worst-case scenario – sometimes, that’s me!) but three things struck me as being pertinent (and positive):

I already had a solution for the problem. Knowing that I’d face it at some point, I picked up a bottle of mite treatment just over a week ago. Little did I know I’d need it so soon!
Had I not seen this little gal on the landing board, I might not have known the extent of the problem until it was too late! Seeing her let me know that it was time to act! I treated the hive and now we’ll wait a couple of days to see how things turn out. Seeing her may have saved the hive.
It afforded me a good reason to look into the hive. In modern beekeeping, opening up the hive for an inspection is a regular thing but it disrupts to the colony a little bit, each time. I generally prefer to intervene as little as possible but the need for treatment gave me a legitimate reason to go into the hive – satisfying my curiosity and teaching me something new.

Looking for the positive in what can initially look like a real negative. It’s something that I often struggle with. Perhaps today is a sign that we’re on the right track!