Hive loses so for?

[TwT]

that is a bad year cindi, sorry for your loses

[Cindi]

Oh my forum friends, thanks for the condolences....smiling.

That is terrible loss for surely, and I am pretty disgusted actually.  Disgusted at myself for thinking that everything SHOULD be OK and they turned out not.  I really and seriously at am a loss as to why these deadouts -- big clusters, lots of food, no varroa mite issues, the counts were very low last fall, no reason for this to happen, as far as I can tell.   I will more than definitely get the bee inspector to come out and check things out with me.  I am not touching the colonies until I can get some answers.  I hope that it is not a disease.  But still, that seem still so unlikely too because I keep a pretty good eye on them, and narry have I seen any sign of trouble, inside the colonies, or on the outside with broken, run down bees, with any kind of wing deformation or anything, it is a mystery.  Oh well, I love mysteries and will have it solved, smiling.  Have that great, most awesomely wonderful day, and that great health to boot!!  Cindi

[TimLa]

Started one hive last April, learned a lot, then one day a bear ripped it to shreds.

I have a package of Italians due in April.  Putting up the electric fence next weekend.  Assembling new hive components in March.

-T

[Tucker1]

So far so good.  There are three of us working with hives in eastern Washington. Of the 3 hives, 1 failed, 1 was weakened and the other is doing just fine. I'm the lucky one. The one hive that was a loss did not have wooden bottom board (only a screen bottom). All of the bees in this hive appear to have frozen to death. There was still some honey to be found. We had a lot of snow here this winter. The weakened hive didn't get much attention after the honey was harvested, so there was some serious loss due to starvation. My girls seemed to have done well. I provided them extra feed during Oct. and November. Once the snow melted in mid-January, I used the plastic bags feeding method that I found on the forum. It worked really well.

I just checked my hive this afternoon. It's about 48 F and the air is very still. About 2 - 3 dozen girls were flying around the hive. One landed on my ear and seemed to be checking to see if I cleaned my ears. It was just nice to see them doing "their thing". If the weather is nice tomorrow I provide them a  boardman feeder during my lunch break and on Saturday provide them a top feeder with sugar water and "Mega what-ever". I'd like to get them building up for spring.

With luck, I'll start my second hive when the packaged bees are delivered to Spokane. My daughter's father-in-law really likes our honey, so I need to ramp-up production.

It's nice to starting again.

Regards,
Tucker

[Cossack]

I started with 14 hives going into the Winter and lost 6 so far. The 6 that I lost, I believe were from a severe wind storm we had on New Years Eve. It knocked six of the hives down. They were exposed to some severe winds for most of the day until I got home from work. It then dropped down to the single digits that night. I can't wait for the spring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Utah]

In Northern Utah, wintered 4 Italian hives: 2 strong, 1 below average, 1 small and weak hive.

I have the 2 strong hives and they are still strong and are flying regularly in the cold,
The 1 below average is still doing well but this strain just does not fly much in the cold,
The 1 weak hive is still not dead but is nearly there. Dont know if I can rescue it - I have fed, added patty, even added a heat bulb. They just wont make any new brood, wont fly and I am not good enough to quickly identify the unmarked queen. How do you easily and cheaply mark a queen anyway? I will probably replace this hive with Carni's, or with a split that I can tell will happen shortly.

[Cindi]

Scott, hold tight on that colony that you have given pollen and the heat source to.  They just might pick up.  If the colony is really small, they may have a teeny tiny little patch of brood being raised, little by little, sometimes they can raise a little patch even the size of a teeny, tiny baseball or even smaller.  Hold on, wait on them.  Have a great, most wonderful day, health.  Cindi

[bassman1977]

Confirmed 2 dead outs yesterday.  There was plenty of honey.  I'll investigate more when I take the hives apart but I have a feeling it is due to keeping my SBBs open.  This is the last time I will do that.  2 years ago I lost my only two hives keeping the SBBs open.  Last year, closed them up, 100% success, this year, 2 down.  Not sure about my out yard.  I need to check them out yet.  They are all solid bottoms there.

3 of 3 at the out yard for a total of 5 out of 7 surviving.  This is encouraging.  I'm going to raise some queens this year and get back up to 15.

[JP]

Cindi, so sorry to hear of your losses, my losses are more than normal this winter. I've had storm issues, kid issues, racoon or possum issues and some starvation issues, my fault there, thinking they had enough feed.


Down to about 35 now, from 50.

My mentor lost a bunch this winter as well.


...JP

[Kathyp]

i have to revise to 1 loss so far.   the chalkbrood hive didn't make it.  they were flying on the warm days, but checked for food yesterday and found that one dead.  can't say i didn't give them every chance, so i don't feel to bad.

[daniel]

I had 6 going into winter 4 left. One small one I did'nt think it would make it and one I have no idea. I'm surprised as how well they have done lots of Bees in each hive. We had a very cold and nasty and winter here in Wis.  I started feeding yesterday as it was 60 degrees yesterday and the girls  were really enjoying themselves.

[Jack]

Hi all,

I went into the winter with three healthy hives. Yesterday we had some fine temperatures so I had a look. One suspect was a dead out but the other two were going strong. Of the two left one was a bit light so I put a bag of sugar on just in case. Last year I made the mistake of leaving the paper edges outside and lost a hive. Won't repeat that mistake. I took pictures of the dead out and would like some input but not sure of the process to get them posted. Many of the bodies looked like they were missing their stinger and had been hollowed out or eaten by some bug? Any clues?

Cindy, those are some serious losses and I feel for you. I strive to buildup to about ten hives and as I lost all three last year and I now have two almost through winter, I hope the addition of two new packages and a possible split will yield five going into next winter. It does take time when living in a less than bee perfect environment.

Best wishes,

Jack

[TwT]

well found one more empty today, so for thats just 2 since last fall, aint been a bad yer for me, hate to here about other in here having a bad year..

[BearCreekBees]

Yesterday the temperature hit 40 degrees here for the first time all winter. I ran out to check the hives and was pleasantly surprised to find them all alive with lots of flight activity. I was a little worried about one hive which we took the queen from to give to one of our new club members after he lost his while installing the package. The "donor" hive raised a new queen but she never started laying- we had lousy weather the week she should have been taking her mating flight so she either never got out, or got out and never made it back to the hive. I gave the hive another frame with eggs and they did manage to raise a queen the second time around, but that hive never did very well and I wasn't sure they would survive the winter, so I was happy to see that they are still with us.

If it EVER warms up here I will be anxious to open the hives to check them. I guess that won't be until after this week's expected blizzard!!!!

[Zane]

Near the end of last season I had 6 swarms and a nuc. The nuc looked strong as did one swarm. So I combined 2 into 2 others. I lost the nuc in Feb. balled up and heads in comb and 2 others. I was told it could have been me not venting the top. I vented the last 3 hives and they are going well. I tried to feed them a little but they arent taking very fast. 1 qt every 1-2 weeks.

[sonny]

One of four. The hive that I thought was the strongest :'(

[bassman1977]

One of four. The hive that I thought was the strongest :'(

Funny isn't it?  The hives I thought were going to be dead survived.

I was talking with the land owner where my outyard is.  Apparently over the winter, the outer and inner cover blew off during one of the wind storms we had.  He doesn't know how long the lid was off for, but he said it was snowing right into the hive, and obviously there was the bitter cold wind.  This hive is as strong as the last time I saw it in the fall.   :shock:  Crazy.  I'm glad he noticed it and put the covers back on for me.

[Davepeg]

We lost one out of 4.  It was a new hive, my only top bar hive so I don't know if my inexperience was the cause.  I really don't think they had built up enough honey and was just too small.  I'll try again this year.

[desmondmegan]

1 out of 2. 1 was not strong going into the winter.

[doak]

I started last spring with four. Ended up with 7 but no honey.
I have 6 at present and haven't opened any up yet. But will do so soon.
dook