MITES! Creeping, creeping.

I took out the varroa floor of hive1 today and was horrified to see it covered in thousands of very tiny mites which were crawling around. This is terrible news. I don't know if they are varroa. It seems like a fair bet, but the mites seemed smaller and less red that my limited varroa experience told me they might be. I've put calls out to a few colleagues to get a second opinion, and am purchasing some medicine immediately. I'll also remove the varroa floor from both hives straight away so there will only be an open mesh floor through which the mites will fall.

Also, I moved hive2 a little more today. The move was barely 1 meter, but still the returning foragers took a time relocating. Again it was interesting that they seemed to start their extended search at the location where the hive had been yesterday morning, i.e. where it had been before I started any of these mini-moves. However, I think the bees eventually got the point and I decided to leave them to it and to return in a day or so for another mini-move to get that hive nearer to the edge of the site and hence in a less obtrusive location.