How do we determine what our bees died of????

[Diane]

Our bees didn't make it through the winter... When I opened the hives the bees are in all different locations.  I actually thought some were still alive as it looked like they were in the process of working or just resting.  One of our hives still has honey.  Any thoughts?  I want to make sure that if we did something wrong, we won't do it again.  Also, not sure what to do with the honey we still have; give to new bees?

Thanks everyone.   

[rick42_98]

Diane,
Don't jump the gun.  If it was a cool or cold day when you checked the bees may still be alive.  When it is cold the bees stay very still.  You could mistake them for dead.  Wait for warmer weather.  If they have their heads in the cells then I believe it is generally thought they died of starvation.  Wait for a day approaching 50 degrees.  You may see some flying about the hive.  If you did lose them well then my condolences.  I thought for sure I had lost mine too but sure enough, yesterday, there were a bunch flying about the hive.  While we're not out of the woods yet that is a good sign.  Once the maples pop then we can say we've made it.  Keep up the fight and if you did lose them maybe you can get an early season swarm.  Check with your local beekeeper chapter.  Good luck

[Diane]

Thank you for the quick reply.  It was in the 40's the day I checked them.  Do you think that was cold enough to make them still? 

[riverrat]

i personally wouldnt recommend pulling frames on a 40 degree day.  it may be cooler in the hive than the 40. If you break the cluster you will do more harm then good. if the hive is dead they may have cold starved its been cold this winter and they may not have been able to move over to stores. Was some of the bees dead head first in the cells

[rick42_98]

Diane,
The 40's are definitely cool enough to make them still.  Here is an interesting thing that happened to me.  In Nov on a cold day I saw what I though was a dead bee on the outside of my hive.  Frozen, I thought, completely immobile, deader than a door nail, frozen in place, for sure.  I took her in the house to show my 7 year old son.  I showed him the "dead and frozen" bee.  He said cool.  I left her on the counter.  About 10 minutes later I hear a buzzing in the kitchen.  Sure enough, the bee is not on the counter where I left her but buzzing up a storm in the flourescent fixture above the cabinets.  So now I have to capture her and bring her outside and place her back on the landing board.  UGH....Anyway, my point is don't be premature in your assessment here.  Give them a little time.  This weekend is supposed to be mild.  Check them now and see if 1 or 2 are not buzzing around the hive.  Please let me know what you see.

Rick

[Diane]

My husband and I just got back in from checking the hives.  We think they are definitely dead.  There were some, not a lot with their heads in the cells, but the majority are scattered all over the hive.  We had put some hard tack candy on the hives late last year and we wanted to get it out as we've had some sunny days and it is starting to melt.  We would have a worse mess to clean up if it all melted in the hive.  Most of it was still intact.  One hive has a good portion of capped honey left, the other just a little.  We put everything back together, but I'm feeling pretty confident they are gone.  We'll see. 

I feel terrible about this.  I wish we could figure out what happened.  Maybe it was the cold that killed them, I don't know.  I didn't see any dead hive beetles and I'm not sure I would be able to see mites if they were present.  We'll take some pictures when we get around to cleaning them up.  I thought for sure the hive with the good bit of honey would have made it through.

What should we do with the honey?  Save it for new bees?  And the frames?

sorry... starting to ramble now.  Thanks to everyone that have responded. 

[iddee]

Hard tack candy likely has corn starch. A no-no for bees. May be other bad ingredients, also. Always feed real sugar, honey, or hfcs only. The bees being scattered makes me think stomach problems of some kind.

[Diane]

We made the sugar blocks that are mentioned on Robo's World for emergency feeding of bees.  http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/beekeeping/emergency-feeding/ 

There wasn't any corn starch in it or anything other than sugar, water and vinegar.  I probably shouldn't have called it hard tack candy.

[Scadsobees]

Diane,
I feel for you, it is really disheartening!!!  Most of us have been there....

There are lots of different reasons they fail.  Heavy mite load in the fall, failure to build up strong enough..weak going into winter, small clusters, queen failure, other diseases such as nosema, tracheal mites, mice, ...and don't forget human intervention   (been there done that plenty :-x )

Unless you can identify something that it could be, you can just clean out the hives as best as you can and get ready for the new ones...

Rick
As to exact causes, we'd need a pretty detailed history of how you treated, how they were in the fall, what you see in the hive now, etc.  Are they all in one cluster heads in the cells? is ther honey within 2 inches of the cluster?  What size is the cluster?  Were there any empty but well formed queen cells in there?
The way you mentioned "one hive still has honey" indicates that one hive didn't, and that could be a starvation case if they couldn't get up to the sugar board.

[misfyredOhio]

After reading this post, I got a very sinking feeling. I think I murdered a lot of my bees. It was about 40 degrees when I opened the hive last weekend. No bees were moving. I assumed they were dead and knocked a lot of the bees to the ground off of the frames. After I got home tonight (in the mid-60s today), I saw a single bee fly out of the hive. I bet they weren't actually dead. I'm pretty sick about this.

[Davepeg]

First of all - don't beat yourself up to much.  We are all just trying to help the honeybees and sometimes in learning how to do this, we make mistakes.
The best thing you can do is just wait for warmer weather, clean out the hives and start again, using the knowledge you have learned this past year.  It's upsetting to have a hive die, we lost ours the first year and it was very hard.  This year, we lost 2 out of our 6 hives - we don't know why - sometimes you'll never figure it out.
It's a new beekeeping year - good luck, and reach out to local beekeepers for help if needed.

[sarafina]

After reading this post, I got a very sinking feeling. I think I murdered a lot of my bees. It was about 40 degrees when I opened the hive last weekend. No bees were moving. I assumed they were dead and knocked a lot of the bees to the ground off of the frames. After I got home tonight (in the mid-60s today), I saw a single bee fly out of the hive. I bet they weren't actually dead. I'm pretty sick about this.

I am sorry for your loss.  Was there any honey left in the combs?  Maybe that was a bee from another hive robbing the honey.  It is hard to lose a hive, but I know you would feel better about it if it wasn't because you shook them on the ground.

[doak]

I may take a peep at 50 degrees. Only at 60 and above do I get into it very deep. :)doak

[manfre]

Some states have a bee lab that will let you send them some of the dead bees to determine cause of death.

[Michael Bush]

Yes, I would not jump to conclusions about them being dead until the temperatures are in the 60s and they are still not moving...

[Diane]

Thanks for everyone's input, I can't begin to tell you how helpful it has been.  We saw bees flying in and out of the hive a few days ago when it was in the 60s.  Of course we didn't want to disturb the hives again so we don't know if they are our bees or others that are robbing our hives.  We had the sinking feeling also.

A lot of lessons learned here.  We are in the process of getting a local mentor to work with us.  Until that time, we'll get hives ready for our new bees and once the temps have warmed up, we'll open the old hives and clean them out.

Thanks again everyone!