Webbing in deadout

[Dallasbeek]

My mentor finally opened one of his hives to find it is a deadout.  We went though the hive today and apparently the bees froze when we had our last freeze.  The dead bees were in a cluster with honey one frame away.  There was what appeared to be webbing around the perimeter of the cluster, but not elsewhere in the hive.  It was similar to wax moth webbing, but the wax was not disturbed.  Anyone have an explanation for this webbing?  Other than that, we concluded the bees had too much space in the hive to keep it all warm -- he had one deep and three mediums in the stack.  We normally have much warmer winters in Dallas, but this year was especially cold.  Thanks for any suggestions.


Gary

[mikecva]

You might ask your mentor about freezing the brood frames for 3-5 days to kill bacteria. -Mike

[Dallasbeek]

Thanks.  Good idea.  I will also kill any eggs, etc., right?

Gary

[BeeMaster2]

I do not know if it will kill any bacteria but it will kill any eggs or larva from wax moths and SHB.
Jim

[Dallasbeek]

We opened the hive I got from him today to requeen and it defies everything I've read.  Before we moved them from his yard a quarter mile away to my house SUCCESSFULLY, thanks to Michael Bush's advice debunking 2 feet or 2 miles (thank you,MB), my hive was in the shade.  I saw only one SHB and couldn't find any varroa mites.  The hive was so full we're doing a couple of splits from it into 8-bar Langs, one with the old queen the other with a new queen.

The old queen was really tough to find.  He had a queen excluder on the full bottom and full super over the excluder.  We finally had all 10 frames out, split between two empty 8-frame boxes and watched to see where the bees congregated.  That established where she was and found her.  Closed up the queenless box and plan to let that status sink in to the bees in that box until tomorrow, when we'll install the cage with the cork still in it, I think, for one day.  Then we'll see if the new queen is accepted.  Are we doing this right?  :jail: Any advice would be appreciated.

Why didn't the emoji show instead of my screen just showing jail with colons on each side?  Is that how it's supposed to work?  I'm new at ALL this stuff.

[Dallasbeek]

Okay, I just found out that's how it works.  We're learning :)
Gary

[drlonzo]

Dallasbeek - looks and sounds like you have a good hand on things.  You are going about things the right way from what i can tell with the split so far.  Just remember that it usually takes less then 24 hours for a colony to figure out that it's queenless, however you should introduce the new queen first thing the following day in her cage as planned with the cork.  Wait at least 24 more hours to make sure they have accepted her and then open up the candy cork end or place marshmallow in one end and allow the bees to free her.  Wait 48 hours again, remove the queen cage, and don't bother the hive for at least 9 days.  Then when you check into the cage you should see older larva and possibly capped brood if she started laying quickly.

[Dallasbeek]

drlonzo,

Thaks for reassurance of what we have planned is the right way to go.  I like your timetable.

The bees are the masters and we are here to try to help them do what nature intends, I guess.  They've been here longer than we have, so they must be doing something right.

Gary