Hi all,
Went to do a winter inspection and sugar shake in my 8 hives today, they were busting at the seems as of two weeks ago. Opened them up and it was a wasteland, maybe four frames of bees in a four box hive. 3 of the colonies have no queen. All the honey stores chewed open and gone. No sign of disease or pests. slid out the bottom boards and it was a graveyard of bee parts, legs and wings everywhere-real sad scene. It looks like something invaded these hives and literally wiped them out, just tore them apart. I am just.........What!!!?????!!! :?
Any ideas what could do this?
Send us a photo of your setup? Did you have entrances reduced? How were you feeding them, if at all? Did you notice any wing deformation in your bees?
Let's hope these haven't found their way to Calif.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1012_051012_hornet_video.html
My guess, tho, would be pesticide weakened them to the point they robbed each other to death, with help from the other hives in the area.
entrances were not reduced as we have been having a real heat wave so i was postponing. Have not been feeding, it has been a good year and they all had ample honey as of a week ago. This pic is of earlier in the season but you can see the basic set up.
(http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/5330/stuff010.th.jpg) (http://img294.imageshack.us/i/stuff010.jpg/)
Oh, and i did notice wing deformation in one hive but only on the drones (which were many in this one hive)
looks like you have both upper and lower entrances? how have the yellowjackets been this year? they have been a real problem here. had to reduce my entrances early. they were going after even the strong hives.
So sorry for your loss. It does sound like Robing. Do you have enough bees left to do some combining to get them through the winter?
Just bottom entrances. We have had yellow jackets but i haven't seen them in any higher numbers than usual or around the hives really. My thoughts went to yellow jackets but could they take 8 healthy hives like that so fast?
I do not know if you have a problem with them, but Hornets can destroy a colony with limited numbers of invaders. If you search you tube there are total colonies wiped out by 30 Hornets and the only thing that was left was carnage. Were there many on the ground in the front of the hives?
Soooo, spoke to the local bee shop and yellow jackets have been wreaking total havoc on all the local bees-everyone is seeing huge losses. Kathyp-sounds like you were on top of it-wish i'd seen it. I never saw them in any kind of numbers so it never crossed my mind to worry-guess i've learned that lesson the hardest of ways.
I'd say robbing.