Dead bees in front of hive

Koala John · December 26, 2007, 06:27:28 PM

Hi,
I'm a new member from Australia where it's Summer time and we are in the depths of a nasty drought. I've been keeping a few hives for just a few months - this site has been a massive help to a beginner like me.

One of my hives has never really done well and yesterday I opened it for a thorough look. I found some spiders, some wax moth cocoons, and no brood of any kind. The honey they were stockpiling is all gone. No evidence of a queen. The hive is obviously in trouble. I cleaned things up as much as I could, reduced the hive down from 3 deeps to 2, and put in one frame with some eggs (I didn't notice if this frame had any larva) and bees from a strong hive. I also reduced the entrance.

Just an hour or so later, there was a double handful of dead and dying bees in front of the hive. I thought it was robbing, but now am not so sure. I couldn't see any evidence of robbing. I am a newbee though! I am wondering if for some reason, the hive turned on the bees I left on the frame of eggs? I've never seen this happen before, and it has shaken my confidence in moving frames between hives. Is this possible, or do you think it was robbing or something else I missed?
Thanks,
John.

PerryBee · December 26, 2007, 07:15:33 PM

Hi John, I'm not an expert by any means but I think that I would have transferred the frame but without the adhereing bees. The bees in your troubled hive would readily accept the frame of brood ( eggs or larvae ) but probably didn't care too much for the other bees. Best in the New Year.

Kathyp · December 26, 2007, 08:20:42 PM

are you feeding? that wouldn't hurt. i don't think they minded the new workers. you reduced the size of the hive. they may have just cleaned house after you gave them less space and more workers. you also probably killed a few as you were working.

you didn't accidentally transfer your queen? i did that last year, but the new hive accepted her and the old one raised a new queen. :-) sometimes you get lucky.

Koala John · December 26, 2007, 09:35:22 PM

Kathyp and PerryBee, thanks so much for the replies.

I did feed them at the end of the day - they seem to need all the help they can get at the moment.
At first I thought I may have killed a few working the hive, as I am fairly inexperienced. But there were 200-300 dead, and growing. I saw a couple stagger out of the hive while I watched, seemingly newly stung. So for once I don't think it was my fat fingers that crushed any!

I was as careful as possible to inspect the frame I transferred for a queen - that's one of my worst nightmares! I didn't see her on it. If I missed her, would that cause this problem? I assume a queen would be killed, but why would they kill the other bees?

I've transferred several frames with bees between hives in the past and it's worked well. Now I'm asking myself if there is something I don't know about doing this - should I only transfer frames of larva? Should I shake all bees off? I've had no problems in the past but am really scratching my head over this.

Michael Bush · December 26, 2007, 09:57:20 PM

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesrobbing.htm

tig · December 27, 2007, 12:04:36 AM

they probably killed the bees that were in the egg frame. they will accept the eggs, but not the bees since they know those come from somewhere else.

Koala John · December 27, 2007, 06:23:09 AM

Thanks ladies and gents, there's so much I have to learn. :)
I have some more reading to do over Christmas to learn more about robbing and transferring frames between hives. Thanks for the great link Michael - I thought I'd read your whole site but obviously not!

Happy Christmas, and may your bees be prolific in '08.
John.

Scadsobees · December 27, 2007, 09:03:34 AM

No brood and no honey stores? If so, then it doesn't sound like robbing.

If you have just started feeding them, perhaps that triggered the robber bees? Or they have been robbing them for a while and are near the end?

How many bees are currently there in this hive?

Usually the bees are amiable to adding a frame of eggs with the nurse bees. There are a lot of things that could be going on. If they have been struggling and the queen died, and they can't raise a new one, then they could turn somewhat nasty, perhaps this is why they are attacking the introduced bees.

The quandry is how to feed without robbing...that can be tricky sometimes, especially in your situation.

Rick

Koala John · December 27, 2007, 06:56:17 PM

Thanks for the comments Scadsobees.
The hive has no brood, no honey stores at all. They did have 2 full frames of honey about 6 weeks ago.

I only fed them after I saw the dead bees out front, so if it is robbing, my feeding wasn't what started it.

Hive is an 8 frame deep, had three boxes. I removed one, wanted to put them all into one box, but thought they would not quite fit so left them in two boxes. So there are a fair few bees.

Checking my records, I've not checked them for a laying queen for some time, so they may have been queenless for a long time. I saw no capped drone cells.

Thanks again,
John.

Koala John · January 04, 2008, 05:56:51 PM

Some further information after I did an inspection yesterday...
I found that the hive is starving. I'm pretty sure that what I saw was therefore not robbing - there was and is nothing to rob. ;)

Nine days later, the frame of brood I put in has no capped queen cell as I would expect if the hive had no queen, so I am assuming it is still queenright, despite no eggs being laid by the queen (is it normal for a queen to stop laying in a dearth?).

My theory is that the dead and dying bees out the front were the bees on the brood comb I put in that were killed by the others in the hive. It's the first time I've seen this happen and I suspect that the starvation of the hive had something to do with the unusual behaviour of the bees.

Anyway, I am feeding them and am hoping that they will be OK. I've also put another comb of brood in (and shaken the bees off before putting it in this time!).

Thanks for your opinions and help,
John.

LocustHoney · January 04, 2008, 06:50:22 PM

My queens slow down to almost a stop in the dearth I had last year. Two of the eight hives still went at it but they were starting up. The others were somewhat established.

tig · January 04, 2008, 06:52:43 PM

if the hive run out of food, the queen may have stopped laying. how is the pollen situation? do they have enough stores or pollen coming in? you may have enough honey in the hive, but if there's no pollen, the queen also stops laying.

Koala John · January 05, 2008, 04:28:01 AM

There's no stored pollen in this hive Tig, and in a few other hives too - the drought is really biting here. They are bringing in a little pollen and bee numbers have not yet plummeted but they are right on the edge. Looks like I need to start feeding pollen as well. I feel like I've been a bit caught out here as I'm new to beekeeping and should have been prepared to start feeding at any time - yet another lesson learned :-\

LocustHoney · January 05, 2008, 08:03:28 AM

Even with the temps around 45 I still see bees bringing in what appears to be pollen. Can this be true? Where are they getting it from in the middle of winter....although this is a North Carolina winter. Temps are going to be in the upper 60's Monday and Tuesday. But we just had night time temps as low as 14 degrees. Go figure.

tig · January 05, 2008, 08:28:47 AM

if you don't have any fresh pollen, maybe you can buy a substitute. without pollen the queen will definitely stop laying, much more without honey. you have an emergency situation here and you have to act fast before the colony collapses!

i've heard about your drought and i know it must suck big time. hope things work out for you.

LocustHoney · January 05, 2008, 06:43:19 PM

Are you replying to me tig??? (Sorry for the confusion)

Koala John · January 07, 2008, 08:07:26 AM

Thanks Tig, yes, things are pretty bad down here at the moment, and I've been really caught out with how quickly things went downhill. I'm feeding them heavily, and today gave all the hives pollen patties.
I've learnt that I need to be better prepared for a serious dearth and must do a better job of monitoring the hives stores.
Cheers,
John.