Why did hive die over winter?

drbryanj · March 13, 2007, 07:27:09 PM

I started my first hive last May with a russian queen. Checked and she was laying eggs. Comb was being drawn. Brood and honey were capped. Had two deep suppers and a shallow super. Not much honey in the shallow super, so I left it in place and put on a hive top feeder with simple syrup.

This week I checked the hive and all the bees were dead. They were head first in the comb of the deep supers. No bees in the shallow super and no bees in the hive top feeder.

I assume the hive starved. Why? There was plenty of syrup available. Why didn't they use it.

In the spring I used the same feeder to esablish the hive and the bees had no problems.

I am starting again this spring and do not want to lose them again in the winter.

Mici · March 13, 2007, 07:29:52 PM

my guess is that you had some bad weather? by bad i mean real cold, to cold for bees to move towards the food. i think that weaker hives are more prone to this.

buzzbee · March 13, 2007, 07:47:27 PM

You need to make sure in the fall your bees have ample stores.You should have 80 lbs. or so going into late fall.They can't go to the syrup if it's too cold and they won't take the cold syrup.

drbryanj · March 13, 2007, 07:49:06 PM

What do you do if the bees haven't put up that much honey yet?

buzzbee · March 13, 2007, 07:58:11 PM

On warm days in the fall you should feed a 2 to 1 sugar mix to let them fill the hives with honey.

Kathyp · March 13, 2007, 08:01:59 PM

also, maybe to much room? we had a really crappy winter. two pieces of advice i got probably saved my hide. one was to force the bees down into the two bottom deeps for the winter. there were so many bees, i didn't think they'd all fit but they did, and by the end of winter there were fewer bees. if i had not forced them down, they would have had way to much room in there and would never have kept the whole hive warm. the other was to check mid winter and make sure they had enough honey close to the cluster. i ended up taking some of the frames of honey that i had stored, and swapping them with empty frames in the hive.

next year is another year.....

buzzbee · March 13, 2007, 08:16:41 PM

And we learn best from our mistakes! ;)

drbryanj · March 13, 2007, 08:19:56 PM

Thanks everyone for the advise. Ready to try again.

JohnM · March 14, 2007, 03:47:04 PM

drbryanj

Hi, sorry to hear about your problem.

My only contribution here would be that from my experience, the biggest problem has always been damp. Do you have ventilated floors? This may be the problem?!

I have a similar situation myself (on a nearby thread).