I am not sure what happened to this hive. During 60+degree sunny weather I opened the lid and found the bees "covering" the queen. I posted a question about "balling" the queen at that time. I left the hive alone and found that it is dead today.
There are very few bees in the hive. I did not have time to tear everything apart today, so I do not know if there is a dead queen lying on the bottom board. It almost looked like they "up and left".
There are quite a few brown splotches scattered on the tops of the frames etc. Do these indicate NOSEMA? (did I even spell it correctly?) I tore a dead bee apart and found that the abdomen was brown inside. There was a large amount of activity during the warm days.
There is quite a bit of honey left in one of the boxes. Would it be unwise to use it to feed my other hives? The other hives appear to be thriving and bringing in pollen like crazy. If it was Nosema, would it affect a strong hive? It is not enough to be a major loss to toss it, but I hate to if I can safely use it to feed the bees.
You'd be amazed at what bees will do with old comb/dead outs. I've seen dozens and dozens of swarms reinhabiting deadouts that were sprayed to kill the bees and new colonies just show up and reuse what they can and discard the rest.
They some tough lil boogers.
If you want to reuse the frames, go for it. A little cleanup on your part would mean less work for them.
Not sure if I would feed back honey from that hive if it looks or smells funny.
...JP
i wouldn't worry that the inside of the bee was brown. unless you opened it right after it died, or it had been preserved, it was decayed. that's pretty normal for any living thing.
i might cut out any comb that is looking really old. it's a good time to do that. ditto on the honey although i fed by dead-out honey back. i was pretty sure i knew the cause of death.