Bees + no pollen + no honey = kill, wait for death, or try feeding and pray?

[Paraplegic Racehorse]

I just cleaned a dead-out last evening and noticed a distinct lack of stores in the comb (pretty good indication of death by starvation?) On a hunch, I briefly looked into my other hives. All of them, every single one, has a small cluster, no pollen and no honey. Night time temperatures are already mid-thirties (F) and rarely much warmer than 50. I think I have, perhaps, two days to act before my choice is taken from me.

With that in mind, I see three possible courses of action:

• Allow the colonies to die with an "At least they built comb for next year's bees" attitude
• Kill them swiftly by exposure or soap water.
• Combine the four of them into two colonies and attempt feeding with pollen substitute and heavy syrup.

Note that I have nothing on-hand or swiftly available to make up pollen-sub, but I can have syrup in a few minutes. If I combine, do I shake-combine and let the bees sort themselves out, or do I try a newspaper combine in this chilly weather?

As much as I'd really love to have some bees successfully overwinter, I'm leaning strongly towards granting them a swift demise and starting over with new packages in the spring... :(

[Kirk-o]

Well it looks pretty bleak.It gets pretty cold up there I don't know if you could feed them enough and also have enough brood and bees to get through.But what have you go to loose>I guess you could try but it is pretty hard to feed those bees when it is that could
kirk

[Cindi]

Paraplegic Racehorse.  That is a very sad thing that I am hearing.  I hate to be mean or anything, but you should have checked them earlier for winter stores.  I do not know your situation, you may have been too busy, or just simply couldn't have got into the hives, for one reason or another.  It doesn't matter.  Here is southwestern B.C. we begin our feeding probably around the beginning to mid September.  This time is October is really too late.  BUT....

If I were you.  Some friendly advice here.  I would combine the hives, feed as heavily as you can and as quickly.  YOu say they are in the winter cluster, but maybe with the hives combined they make make it warm enough to get to the sugar syrup to store it in cells. I really don't know.  It sounds like it may be too late, but I still think that you should try.  Putting a pollen patty above the cluster will help too.  Can you get some pollen patty somehow made or get it?

If these bees do not make it through the winter, yes, you must look on the bright side.  You must get more bees next year.  I have seen you posting on  our forum now and then, which means that you have a keen interest in bees.  I understand it is difficult for you to work with your colonies, your ativar shows this, but you must be doing the best you can, yeah!!!!!

So, back to the bright side. When you get more bees next year, you will have drawn comb ready for your packages or nucs, whatever you get.  That is a wonderful bonus.

You know I have lost so many colonies last year, because of being new to beekeeping, the varroa mite destructor, swarming, (thinking that I knew it all  :roll: :( :)). I lost 9 colonies because of this learning curve.  You have learned something with this too.  That is a bonus too!!!  Yeah!!!

Next year, remember, you are very far up north and it is dang cold.  You must feed your colonies to get them enough stores for wintertime after you take off the honey.  (as an aside, did you get any honey from these lovely girls this year?).  Fall feeding and getting the bees ready for winter is a very very important part of the beekeeping scene, you must always be aware of what is going on in the hive.

I wish you well with your bees.  Do not be too sad if things don't work out, there is always a next year, another day, tomorrow.  The best of luck wishes sent, and enjoy this day and do have a great day.  Cindi

[ooptec]

Hey,

I am from Saskatchewan which is pretty close to your climate.

Can you combine using the newspaper method or alternately spraying the whole works down w/1 drop peppermint oil in a sprayer and then store them in one deep somewhere that maintains +5 to -5°C? Maybe a crawl space??

Commercial keeps here house their bees like that in single brood boxes and feed them all winter w/good results.

good luck

cheers

peter

[Moonshae]

You could do the combines and feed with a block of fondant, rather than the syrup. I've read here or elsewhere about someone putting a block of it right on the inner cover, blocking the hole, and they cluster there at the fondant all winter.

[Cindi]

Moonshae, the fondant is used, yes, but it generally is for "emergency" feeding, if the bees run short of supplies.  I think that he should try and get a liquid food for his bees.  Just my opinion.  It sounds like Paraplegic Racehorse may be having to do some work, quickly, no matter what he decides to do.

What Peter is saying sounds viable too.  Hope things work out well.  Have a wonderful day, great day.  Cindi

[Paraplegic Racehorse]

So, I have pretty well decided that uniting and feeding is going to be too labor-intensive for very small chance of success. I am afraid that placing feeding baggies/jars/whatever and pollen-sub patties across the top frames will be too far from the cluster for the bees to use efficiently and I have no access to a convenient "warm" place to overwinter them. I will, over the next week, remove top and bottom boards and tip the hive boxes onto their sides, windward, for a rapid exposure-kill (lacking access to a shop-vac I could fill with soap water for a much more humane euthanasia).

Their performance in the last season was really sub-par. In spite of constant feeding throughout the season, these hives were unable to completely fill two medium-depth boxes, each, with comb. The syrup uptake during the season was disappointing at less than 1qt / 10 days / hive, even immediately following package installation.

Looking back on the season, I can say that the low performance of the colonies are largely my own fault. For those wishing to learn from my errors, here they are:

• Packages installed into low-volume hives (single medium-depth boxes)
• No comb. Not even foundation or starter strips; just empty frames
• Insufficient ventilation in wet climate (all boxes show signs of water-damage inside hive)
• No treatment for any type of stress-induced disease flare-up (nosema, chalk brood, et al.; no obvious signs of any of them appeared through season, either; still treatment should probably have been applied in first gallon of feed)
• Feeding was limited to syrup, even when there was little or no pollen available until about three weeks after package installation.
• Too many colonies in a limited forage area
• Location heavily shaded from sun early and late

So... Next year, each package will get installed into a hive consisting of three medium-size boxes with two or three frames of {at least} partial comb + three or four frames of foundation starter-strips, per box, so the queen can immediately begin laying. All hives will be ventilated by means of screened bottom boards (no top ventilation - it does not get very warm, here, at all). Less "leaky" top boards will be constructed and placed on the hives. All hives will get at least on pound of pollen-sub patty, probably two pounds. Not more than four hives placed in any yard, yards separated by at least 1.5 miles, and placed for maximum sun with windscreening built from pallets nailed together.

[Moonshae]

Moonshae, the fondant is used, yes, but it generally is for "emergency" feeding, if the bees run short of supplies.  I think that he should try and get a liquid food for his bees.  Just my opinion.  It sounds like Paraplegic Racehorse may be having to do some work, quickly, no matter what he decides to do.

Indeed, but if it's in the 30s, though, the bees aren't likely to break their cluster to feed on syrup and store and cap it. The person I had read makes this his standard procedure through the winter. I believe his argument was that the honey he took was worth more per lb than the fondant required to keep his hives fed all winter. If I had living hives, and no alternative to get them through the winter than to combine and feed fondant, I'd sure give it a go, rather than start over in the spring.

[biglipzit]

I agree with moonshae, I would never give up on the bees. I guess i just care for them too much. No matter how labour intensive it may be you should still feed fondant or at least with baggies. Just open up each hive and place a baggie or 2 in each or fondant and leave them through the winter and only check them in the spring. If any lived hooray for you if not then you are at the same stage as if you killed them all now although you have probably already done that and it is too late.

[Brian D. Bray]

You left off: Check hives for nectar dearth during inspections.

I started 3 hives on starter strips and/or foundationless,  they boomed to begin with, I even split 2 into nucs thinking I still had most of the summer to build them all up.  No such luck, no sooner did I split that I found I was in a honey dearth and the bees were progressing backwards--I checked them and there were only a couple of pounds of honey but lots of pollen.  In order to get the bees up to the winter stage I had to feed starting in Mid-August.

If you've been readng BC & ABJ you would be aware that a lot of areas throughout the USA were experiencing a nectar dearth.  You're situation sounds to me more like getting hit with a dearth after a good start--like happened to me.  I caught the probelm, corrected it by feeding (at times they were eating what I was feeding just as fast as I could feed) and I'm still going into the winter with 1/2 the stores I would have liked.

One thing that happens at the beginning of a dearth is that hive has been building up and suddenly there isn't enough food for the hive.  If the hive neglects eating the eggs (or even if they do) the population is still increasing and that larger population consumes more stores.  It takes several weeks for the bees to balance out the laid brood with the amount of incoming nectar--time that can eat up all of the stores.

[Jerrymac]

Should just leave them alone if you are not going to do anything to save them You might be surprized at a hive or two being alive come spring time

[Michael Bush]

Unite, feed, and put them on a terrarium heater.

[Kathyp]

if you don't want to do anything else, you can poor dry sugar on the inner cover.  maybe dampen it with a little water from a spray bottle.  that way, any time they do get up there, they have a chance at some food.

[sonnybee]

Hi, I just thought of something. If there are beekeepers near you maybe one would sell you a super or two  of honey. I know that they sometimes do that around here. On the plus side you would end up with a super of drawn comb. Failing that, maybe you could buy a 5 gallon pail of honey, punch a few holes in the lid and place it directly above the cluster. I know winters aren't as severe here as it is up your way but I fed my bees all winter last year and only lost one hive.

[Paraplegic Racehorse]

Okay, from all your suggestions, I placed baggie feeders with 2:1 syrup into the hives. One was lost before I got the feeder into it. Another suffered to an attack by a vandal - I hope he got stung 101 times! - and is perished. The remaining two hives seem a slow to take the syrup. They were slow to take syrup all summer, too. Any ideas on why they might be slow to take syrup, other than cold weather?

[Old Timer]

they are slow to take syrup because they are unwilling to break from the warmth of the cluster to feed. try putting and inverted jar on the frames. a gallon of 2:1 or thicker will do well and go a long way for a small cluster. the bees can cluster directly under it and have access to it while in the cluster.

[DayValleyDahlias]

Keeping bees takes time...to keep them surviving & healthy it seems...I vote for "give bees a chance"...help the little buggers out, is my vote..good luck!

[Brian D. Bray]

I will 2nd the Old Timers advice.  Feed internally and allow the bees to cluster under the feeder.  I just instructed my brother to cut holes the top of the top entrances large enough to accept the mouth of a mason jar.  The hole can be covered with a piece of wood or brick when not holding a feeding jar.  This method has never failed me in feeding bees endanger of starvation as long as the tempeture was sufficient to allow the bees to break cluster a little bit.