Hi,
This is my second season with bees. I overwintered my first season bees. I installed package on April 4th in MA . Shipment was from Georgia. Has anyone had a problem with their packages in Northeast? Wondering what went wrong with these bees.
Installed in a langstroth (sp?) deep with a bottom board, with nine frames and a frame feeder with sugar water. I also feed a pollen patty on top of the frames. Queen was released thru the candy end of the queen cage, but bees were real sluggish and barely crawling around. Bees were all balled up on bottom board with my pollen patty and sugar water untouched.
What do you think happened? Also should I clean frames with bleach solution. Seen no varroa mites on bees.
Thoughts on what do you think happened?
Weather just turning warm this past week.
confused
Massachusetts
David
I'm sorry about the bees! Not all failures are the beekeepers fault. It's hard to believe that you could have killed a package in less than two weeks! That being said, this is what i do when I install a package. I use a division board and keep them down to five or six frames, if at all possible give them a frame of drawn comb (even one frame gives them a jump on things). I like the idea of a division board feeder but a mason jar on top works just fine. If there isn't any drawn comb there is little reason for pollen sub as they are a ways from feeding brood.
Without knowing more, I wonder if the package was doomed before you hived it. In my limited experience, getting them started is the easy part. The problems come later.
Sounds like weather related issues.....if it got cold enough for several days for the bees to need to cluster and they couldn't get to the frame feeder (assume its on an outside frame) and they didn't have time to build comb and store nectar thats a possible scenario....but its really hard to know precisely without more info.
I'll second weather.
What were the conditions like?
If your queens are from GA, the bees are going to have a hard time with prepping for winter at the right time. Is there a local queen source?
Jim
Even if they could get to the frame feeder, there is no way they could warm the syrup enogh to consume it.
A baggie feeder is the only way I know how to give liquid feed in cold weather.
from april 3 through april 6 we had low temps in the low 20s--right when the poster's package was installed.
I'm also in mass and I'm getting 4 packages from Georgia via our club, but the delivery isn't until May 7. We typically don't get packages til late April at the earliest from this supplier. Maybe April 4 was too soon?
Wow 20 degrees and the bees are coming from probably lows in the 60s. A package would have a better chance in the cage than on new foundation.
I recommend you go back to the seller and have him replace it. He is selling them too early and should know better.
Jim
I assume they starved. I would warm the syrup up once a day as hot as I can put my finger in it... that way they can tank up once a day and that always seems to be enough to get them through a cold spell when they have no stores.
Chickenwing; When you ordered your package from GA, what shipping date did you request?
I also have a package of bees from Georgia!But If I were you I would never buy southern bees especially in the early spring.Those bees are used to 70 to 80 % days and 50% nights.And it is a very long ship to Ma from Ga and np telling what they were exposed to while in transit!
I would be looking in Pa or Northern VA for my bees if I were you.Much closer to home and not so much difference in climate at the time!Good Luck!!!
I am up in Canada. But for packages to succeed you need to start them on build comb.Preferably dark.
Packages wear out before they can have enough comb to lay in.
OpaVp.
This time of year in New England .You need to use a gravity feeder (inverted Jar/Can) directly over the cluster so they can warm it and not break cluster to get to it.. and warm syrup in every day at least 1 quart. During cold weather in April I do use one quart mason jars.. I would say definitely starvation. It sounds like you had another hive that made it through the winter. I would have pulled one frame of honey and give it to the package when I installed it. Plus one frame of drawn empty comb if available.
Well at least you hope you learn from your experience. I'm glad you shared it possibly to help other beekeeping along the way especially Northern ones.
You can read the pros and cons of different feeders on the link that I put up.
https://beevac.com/feeder-compare/
BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
Quote from: chickenwing654 on April 17, 2016, 06:22:56 PM
Queen was released thru the candy end of the queen cage, but bees were real sluggish and barely crawling around. Bees were all balled up on bottom board with my pollen patty and sugar water untouched.
David
It sounds like they didn't have much of a chance. At 20 degrees there is no way they could have taken the sugar water. You might have had a better chance keeping the package in the basement or garage for the week until temps warmed up outside and then mountain camped the hive with granular sugar. In cold temperatures you don't want any feed or sub on the bottom of the hive. It must be on the top right over the cluster.
Was any syrup consumed in the can that came with the package?
If you are feeding in cold weather, you do not want to put liquids in a jar directly over the cluster. With the temp changes, it will drip cold water into the cluster and kill the bees. You want to use moistened dry sugar. They can eat it and stay alive but it will not drip on them.
Jim
i am sorry for your loss, we just got our package bees this last sat, i am in maine, i hope the supplier does right by you, keep us updated
Hi CW,
I'm in Mass. I picked up a package in UXBR. on Friday, April 1, along with about twenty other packages for others, bound for S.E. Mass, Plymouth County. It was cold and rainy. My pkg was to replace a hive in an apple orchard, not my house, so I "soft" installed it at my house, between cold rain drops, outside, in a deep, on a wagon, so as to wheel them in for sub-freezing temps. They've done fine for me, and for the people I talk with. None of those other packages have had issues, and they were all "outdoor" hives.
It was a good pkg, IMO. Very few dead bees inside. Queen is doing well.
Did you get your hives from the same source/delivery? It was early. We took a chance.
It was cold as a witch's nose on those few first nights, including your first few. I was real concerned. I put mine in on "wet" frames and with honey. The syrup, also in my garage, was frozen solid on Saturday or Sunday.
I'm bringing them to the orchard tomorrow. Those blossoms are popping within a few more hot day here. Brood will emerge this weekend.
Sal
At the beginning of April in central New England it was about 20 to 30 degrees day and night not much of a temperature differential. Oh and by the way if it is real cold like that I do wrap my jars in insulation.
BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
Hi,
Thanks for the replies. I took a chance when I ordered them beginning of Jan. for April 4th. We got hit with a snow storm (4 inches) that day. I gave them sugar water in a frame feeder, with a pollen patty on top of the frames.
It stayed cold 30's for the first couple of days after installing them. When I checked on them 4 days later, to see if queen was released, they were awful sluggish and not flying. They are not at my house, but at my uncles house. He told me that he seen no activity outside the hive ever. Even when it warmed up a week after installation to the 50's . Again, the sugar water was full in the feeder.
I also want to mention I did give them three drawn out frames in the middle of my box from my last years hive. I guess it was just bad timing on when they arrived. Live and learn.
I always thought that cold wont kill them, just if they get cold and wet.
Thanks again everyone.
David
A very useful lesson for all of us (though sorry it was at your expense). I've come to learn that "cold doesn't kill bees" really means "healthy hives can survive very cold temperatures." In the absence of a healthy hive, then cold is a bad thing for a bee or for a group of bees that have not reached critical mass. You got whacked with some monumentally bad luck. I live in Mass and I think in some places the low's were even lower than the 30s during that time.
The cold thing is a constant source of contemplation for me. I believe the old beeks when they say cold doesn't kill bees, but then I look at research that says Northern raised queens do better in the north. Why? If not cold tolerance? Why do we lose so many hives in winter? (Then again, we lose a bunch in summer, too). The mysteries of beekeeping.
As I may have said in an earlier post, it is hard to believe that cold alone killed them. Last year I picked up five packages from Mann Lake in Wilkes Barre PA and it snowed half way home! When I got home it was in the low forties with heavy wind and got worse from there. I think maybe because I compacted them down to five frames and they did have drawn comb. I thought I just tossed $600.00 and fifteen pounds of bees down the drain but they did fine. My bees came all the way from California so it's not like they were used to warm weather. Maybe some of the other posters were correct that a mason jar feeder would have been better but overall I would look for other reasons than just cold weather. They are amazingly resilient little creatures and adapt so well to change. I'm sure people will disagree with me but if I was going to go with packages again I wouldn't hesitate to start them in the first or second week of April. With a few precautions I was putting on the second box by the time the later packages were delivered. Once again, I'm sorry that you lost your bees, as I have my own failures.
One thing remember when you gravitational feed in the springtime you put a few holes in the feeder cover then if it is fall. I have put thousands a packages in the beginning of April over the years.. Never drowned a hive gravitational feeder. But of course I'm Not Dead Yet neither :wink: I keepbees bees for over 50 years in the coldest part of Massachusetts east of the Connecticut River. Before I move my bees to Vermont.
BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
Quote from: chickenwing654 on April 19, 2016, 06:09:25 PM
I always thought that cold wont kill them, just if they get cold and wet.
David
David,
Cold does not kill bees but starvation does. If you had dumped the bees in a box with two frames of honey it would be a whole different story. They can cluster on the honey, keep it warm and have plenty of food to rear brood and prevent the colony from freezing. No feeder can do that. There is an outside chance that if you had an empty drawn frame and you filled it with syrup they could have clustered on that but it won't last long because syrup is not concentrated like honey is.
It is important that you realize that they did not freeze they starved first and then froze.
How long can bees go without food before they die?
>How long can bees go without food before they die?
Swarms tank up on honey and can last quite a while. Bees that are just being fed and there is nothing to eat all of a sudden don't last as long as the swarm. They can starve in a couple of days without stores.
and with the cold...bees on naked foundation with poor insulation....no stores adjacent and the feeder on the outside away from the cluster.....I think the answer is pretty obvious.
Quote from: KPF on April 19, 2016, 06:28:26 PM
... Northern raised queens do better in the north. Why? If not cold tolerance? ...
I think how they time egg-laying has a lot to do with it. When they shut down in the autumn, and when they fire up in the spring.
Package bees also suffer significant transportation stress that swarms do not.
Last packages I installed were transported in an open trailer from Georgia to Ohio. Bees were in great shape (very few casualties), yet the day after install they spotted the hive tops like they'd been cooped-up for a month. Syrup cans were half empty for bees that were caged 30-36 hours before I took delivery. So, they worked hard to keep warm for the trip. Thus, they need one or three good "purge" flights after holding it for the trip.
Bad luck of the draw on weather this year.
:cool:
Good advice for the most part here. You mentioned you had drawn frames to install them on.. By simply spraying those frames heavily with syrup the bees can warm and access/use the syrup.
i have started a lot of packages in COLD weather, and using the drawn frames beats about any other way tp "feed" them when its cold out.. the baggie feeder is my second choice. As someone else mentioned, a jar over their cluster could kill them from dripping as the temps fluctuate between night and day, Even going from 35 degrees to 40 degrees will cause the syrup to drip as it warms up. The jar cant expand, but the baggie can.. having said that, the bees need to be able to break cluster to MOVE to get to the top of the baggie, or a frame feeder etc... 30 degree temps dont allow that. Having the syrup IN the cells of drawn comb allows them to warm and eat it as if they were eating their own honey..
As much as I do not like package bees, I admit, I have had pretty decent luck with the bees from Wilbanks Apiaries in Georgia, though mid summer I do try to re queen them with local or northern queens for better wintering. the original queens I put in nucs and manage them... I lost four of ten nucs with their queens, so not as bad as the average I have had from the other southern package suppliers I have tried.