southern update.
went to 2 bee yards yesterday and on all hives i found this.
(http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/5629/dead1.th.jpg) (http://img51.imageshack.us/i/dead1.jpg/)
and this
(http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/5681/dead2v.th.jpg) (http://img710.imageshack.us/i/dead2v.jpg/)
:'( :'( :'( :'(
it was across the board, all hives had a large amount of brood on the door step.
looked like they had to contract the cluster on our coldest night ( 2 nights ago ) and the dead brood was probably chilled as i know of no other good reason for this.
so much for the early jump on nucs! :thunder: :thunder:
but being my usual optimist self i did notice that this is the very behavior i want in my hives!
No not the bees getting chilled part!
it was the obvious very hygienic behavior across the board on my hives to clean out the dead brood within 24 hours.
i checked back this evening and the front porch was clean on all hives. clean up done.
don't those who hype their bees as hygienic/ varroa resistant measure the hygienic behavior by freezing a frame of brood and the return it to the hive as is and see how quickly they spot the dead and pull them all out? or did i just think i read that?
oh well anyway the cold snap even got the
deep south so my early start just got swept out the front porch of all my hives.
teach me to taunt the northern crew. :rant: :rant:
I'm not seeing any dead brood. I do see dead adult bees. I get quite a few dead adults around my entrances during the winter. If we get a really nice day or two, the bees will drag the dead out and clean up.
don't those who hype their bees as hygienic/ varroa resistant measure the hygienic behavior by freezing a frame of brood and the return it to the hive as is and see how quickly they spot the dead and pull them all out? or did i just think i read that?
I don't know of anyone who freezes a whole frame. The common method is to take a tin can with the bottom cut off, and to press it down into a frame of sealed brood. Then you pour a little liquid nitrogen in, which kills all the brood inside the can. The frame is returned to the hive, and checked 24 hours later to see what percentage of the dead brood have been removed.
bailey, have the same thing in front of my hives,alot of dead bees.it warmed up some today and the bees were flying and cleaning up the dead bees. ...schawee
country boy
meby my old eyes were playing tricks on me but when i was holding them in my hands they really looked small and quite fuzzy.
and those drones that were there looked kinda young and fuzzy too.
ive seen a cleanout after cold before and this wasnt it.
this was every hive in 2 yards with mostly emergent brood looking bees in large numbers on strong hives with loads of honey in them.
all of them in spring buildup mode until 4 days ago and were flying some 4 days ago.
Bailey
bailey
In the second pic I see bee parts. Wonder if you had some robbing going on. Still a little too early to do splits, I think we are about 9-10 from that.
...JP
I've never seen any fuzzy bees that were chilled brood. Fuzzy bees may be young bees, but they have hatched out.
Did you see any white, partially developed bees with no hair or wings? The developing larva after the cell is capped off will look like this if it gets chilled and removed. If we get chilled brood here, we can expect to see quite a few white bodies at the entrance.
your brood is fine those bees gave there all to keep the brood warm-new bees will replace that small
bit of dead bees and you will be up and runing-RDY-B
there may have been some adult dead but i had a good number of pale immature looking drones and worker brood in the mix. it was still wet and rainy when the pics were taken, this may be causing what
is being seen as older bees.
also taken at last light with an i phone camera.
not the best medium.
looked again today as we warmed up into pollen gathering temps and saw a few more light color immature
bees on the landing board this morning, not many though.
whatever it was it was i believe it to have been temp related.
bailey
oops, forgot your post jp,
it was too cold for robbing the days in question no bees were coming out other than the occational
cleaner with a dead and droping it on the landing board. none were flying 2days when i found this.
i look in the back yard daily and this was an easy observation to follow.
bailey
all hives perking along today as nothing wrong as i thought, i just lost some bees i didnt want to.
but im still making queen cups as fast as i can.
bailey.