My second dead hive. A sad day.

Gail Di Matteo · January 05, 2008, 06:53:55 PM

I assume they starved. So much food for them. A full deep super on top.

I hope my last hive makes it. It is to be warm the next few days. Any suggestions on what to do?

I hope everyone else is having better success. I know learning from mistakes is the best teacher, I just wish it didn't hurt so much.
Thanks,
Gail

pdmattox · January 05, 2008, 07:38:13 PM

I just went through my hives and pulled all honey and pollen bound frames out and replaced them with drawn out foundation for them to have room to raise brood. I also had very small clusters on some boxes that had no brood at all on them but the queen was there. Do all of your frames look like that? Why do you say they are dead(no queen)? I would think little to no brood this time of year is normal. I went from 135 hives this summer to 60-70 now. I know what it feels like to pick up a dead hive and sorry for your loss.

randydrivesabus · January 05, 2008, 07:53:15 PM

what happened to your hives Dallas?

sorry about what happened to you Gail.

pdmattox · January 05, 2008, 07:59:19 PM

Mostly me working in Atlanta driving back and forth for so long and not having time to go through them and keep up with thier needs, then the Small Hive Beetles just exploded and were left unchecked.

randydrivesabus · January 05, 2008, 08:02:17 PM

sorry...thats a lot to lose. makes my 2 hive loss seem like nothing.

Understudy · January 05, 2008, 08:33:06 PM

I assume there is no queen in that cluster?

Sincerely,
Brendhan

pdmattox · January 05, 2008, 10:01:08 PM

If there is I would move them to a nuc with a frame or two of brood and let them build back up.

Gail Di Matteo · January 06, 2008, 10:42:01 AM

I didn't sort thru the cluster looking for the queen. What you are seeing is all dead bees.

Sorry about all your hives Dallas. What a mess that must have been.

Thanks for the replies,
Gail

Understudy · January 06, 2008, 10:59:21 AM

Okay, so those bees in that cluster are dead.

I would find out if there was a queen in there. Even a dead one.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

Gail Di Matteo · January 06, 2008, 12:05:26 PM

Brendhan,
Yes, I found the queen. Can you please tell me what the difference would have been? (This is my first year beekeeping.....).

Thank you,
Gail

pdmattox · January 06, 2008, 12:10:48 PM

It means there was not enough bees there to maintain the temp inside the hive.(critical mass) to keep them warm.

randydrivesabus · January 06, 2008, 12:11:37 PM

Gail-do you see cleansing flights from your 3rd hive?

Cindi · January 06, 2008, 12:19:24 PM

Gail, again sorry. Our lives with the bees is sometimes a very sad work. We try hard to do the best we can, even at that, things don't always work out. There will be more bees. You have the addition of bee love, you have had a colony loss, but keep that chin up and keep on keepin on. You will have lots of successes and some failures, that is plain and simply it. But never give up, there is always hope that one day things will get even easier with more and more successes and less failure, it will be OK, so go and have a fantastic day, Cindi

Gail Di Matteo · January 06, 2008, 12:25:30 PM

Thank you Cindi. I appreciate your kind words. I'm heading back out to clean up my mess. As you say, the sun is shinin'! I will at least enjoy the warm temps and sun today.
Have a great day yourself!
Gail

Michael Bush · January 06, 2008, 03:30:42 PM

Search the bottom and see if there are a lot of dead Varroa mites with the dead bees.

Gail Di Matteo · January 06, 2008, 05:30:38 PM

Randy....I went into the third hive today, with our warm temps, they were out flying and robbing what was left of the other two....I rearranged all the frames to give them full capped ones in the center of both the top and bottom supers. I saw the queen, :lol:, so I'll keep my fingers crossed this hive (which was my smallest!) will make it the rest of winter.

Dallas....Is there any way to circumvent the low heat of a small cluster? I have a pine tree in the yard that the wind took part of it down last week. I piled up a bunch of the limbs on either side of the hive to make a kind of shelter.

Michael...No mites. I will gather a bunch of them up and take to my next Beek club meeting for a second opinion. (Are you going Randy?)

Thank you everyone for your help and patience,
Gail

randydrivesabus · January 06, 2008, 05:47:55 PM

Quote from: Gail Di Matteo on January 06, 2008, 05:30:38 PM
(Are you going Randy?)

i expect to go...I have these bee jackets that i ordered for some people and I'm sure they want them. i kept some dead bees from one of my dead hives that i emailed Dr. Fell about to see if they could examine them at Tech...no response from him yet but I guess school is not in session.

pdmattox · January 06, 2008, 06:12:04 PM

When there is a small cluster and only a couple of frames of brood i would put them in smaller quaters like a nuc box or something.

Understudy · January 06, 2008, 07:58:29 PM

If you found the queen than the reasons the hive died were limited. A dead queen in winter is the end of a hive. If you still have the queen. You may have pest, starvation, or temprature issues.

I want to clarify something. I ask questions so others here can get more information. On wintering your bees I am the last resource you want. Simply because I don't have to winter my bees were I live. However there are many wise and wonderful beekeepers here who do. And the more information I can get to them the more help they can be.

Now if you want to know how to enjoy a frozen margarita in January in shorts. That I can help you with. (The secret is live in South Florida or Jamaica)

Sincerely,
Brendhan

sean · January 06, 2008, 09:29:21 PM

Now if you want to know how to enjoy a frozen margarita in January in shorts. That I can help you with. (The secret is live in South Florida or Jamaica)

Yeah Maan! no problem