"These are shots [below] of the Miracle Queen hive 3-20-2013.
All the bees you see are dead. Some are in a cluster, dying as they
tried to keep warm but on empty comb. A few are out on the honey
elsewhere and died alone. So sad to die alone. The brood area was
empty except for a few squishy larvae that just looked like white
blobs in the cells."
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFailing hives have been in our future and now are part of our experience. I will save you a recitation of the details since the hive at Dave's failed in the same way as the hive at your house. The queen died, and the hive disintegrated in the cold. There were no eggs laid this spring, so she could have been dead awhile. There is much uncertainty about what to do about it. But here are the things moldering in my heart:
ReplyDelete1. Bees patties added on top of the hive body. We broke the propolis barrier to put these in. Draft from the added opening could have chilled the hive, though queen was already dead and the other two hives survived. But maybe your idea about patties on top in March is good.
2. Bee patties with sugar water dried hard. A few bees were on them, but not many. Difficult for bees to get to patty where frames sandwiched it. Option is to try corn syrup patty or just buy the patties premade.
3. Should feed sugar and patty consistently in the fall, also.
4. We should test wrapping hives in tarps next year. I will volunteer to do mine as a test. Of course, they need to be properly ventilated if we do so.
5. When we first went out, we should have pulled the openings out and scraped dead bees from the bottom board. This would have given us an earlier feel for how many live bees were still in the hive.
From Steve Platt on 3/26/2013
ReplyDeleteHi Chris,
I lost a few colonies too, but fewer than in past years. One of the ones I lost starved despite plenty of honey. If the cluster runs out of honey in their immediate location in very cold weather they can't seem to move to the adjacent honey that may only be two or three inches away. I lost two others that I think did not produce enough "winter bees" in the fall and the clusters were too small to make it. I firmly believe that splitting colonies (making nucs) is the strategy that has kept me with live bees. Two and three year old colonies often croak these days, but the young ones seem to usually make it. All of my splits (nucs) made it through the winter.
Our bees were bringing in pollen on the warm day we had early last week. Some decent weather predicted for the end of this week ought to get everybody over the hump.
Steve