Question about Dead Hive

[Tom K-B]

I started two colonies from packages on April 3rd. They are located in my back yard. They did really well and just exploded with growth. On July 4th we harvested 57 lbs of honey from the two hives. In mid-July I decided not to harvest any more honey from them this year and to split both hives. The new colonies from the split have also done really well. For the past three weeks or so I've been feeding them 2/1 syrup. So, now I have four good strong colonies in my back yard, each with 40-5- lbs of honey/syrup stored up for winter. When I checked on them on Sep. 28th they all were boiling over with bees and had six to eight frames filled with eggs, larvae and capped brood.

A week ago Wednesday, Oct 1st, I first noticed a lot of bees laying dead in my driveway. I found that curious, but thought it must just be the time of year. Then on Saturday, Oct 4th, I found a large number of dead bees at the entrance of one of the hives. When I opened it up I found only about 200 living bees in the hive, all the rest (around 60,000, I'd guess) were laying dead on the bottom of the hive. :'(

So, of course I'm wondering how this happened. I sent an email to our state Apiarist asking him to do an inspection, or at least to take a sample of the bees to see if he can determine their cause of death. I haven't heard back from him after six days now. I checked for signs of EFB and AFB - nothing. I'm thinking they were poisoned. And I'm wondering if perhaps a scout bee from that hive got into some sort of pesticide and brought it back to the hive and all the rest of the bees died from that. I know there are ant baits that work like that. Is that plausible?  And, if so, what do I need to do about the boxes and frames from that hive?

[Better.to.Bee.than.not]

I'm pretty impressed you did a split in july, and less than 3 months later your split rebuilt to 60,000.
 To many variables and no info to really know what happened...of course they could of been poisoned any number of ways.

[Tom K-B]

Oh, yeah, the one that died was one of the "parent" colonies.

[buzzbee]

Was there any stores left in the dead hive? Perhaps splitting them after harvesting could have left them light on food and defenses.

[jayj200]

mine did that last year. if it is pesticides then don't share the honey. may or may not be consumable by humans. oh you said feeding them sugar. did you cook the sugar water ?

clean off all the frames and soak all under water for 3 to 4 days then as I did pressure washed, and let dry in the sun.

soaking will dilute the pesticide.
used the same box frames and foundation the next year.
had another exuberant colony in that box. still going strong today

[Tom K-B]

Just checked on my three remaining hives. The two new colonies are doing fine and have lots of stores, eggs, larvae and capped brood.

The remaining "parent colony" is troubling. It is in three eight frame mediums and was sitting directly beside the hive that died. The top box is filled to the brim with capped honey. It's so heavy I can barely lift it. When I set it on a little stand I use when I'm checking hives about twenty or so bees fell out of the box onto the driveway and just flopped around on their backs like they couldn't right themselves. There were also other bees still in the box that were flopping around the same way.

There was still five frames in the middle box that had capped brood and larvae. No eggs. And there were two emergency queen cells with larvae in them. The bottom box was pretty much empty. And there were probably 500-1000 dead bees laying on the SBB.

Any thoughts about that flopping around behavior. That's why I think it is pesticides. But, Jay, yes, I did heat the water while making the syrup. I was careful, though, not to heat it to the boiling point. Oh, and I had Honey-B-Healthy in the syrup as well.

[jayj200]

then one probably would not want to eat the honey. try it

do not share any of this with the other hives. IT WILL KILL THEM

the flopping and false starts are do to insecticide. they got into some thing

remove the live bees and start a nuc. give them all fresh from the other colonies ya have

[Tom K-B]

I sent a sample of dead and dying bees from this colony to the USDA Bee Research Lab in Maryland for analysis. This is a service offered free to beekeepers by the USDA. They said that they didn't have the equipment to test for insecticide (they gave me links to the lab that does -- very expensive). But they did give me an analysis of three other possibilities. They tested for Nosema (found none present), Tracheal mites (found none present), and Varroa mites (found 6.7 mites per 100 bees).

I still think my bees died due to insecticide, but it's nice to know that this service is available. So, here's my new question. Is 6.7 Varroa mites per 100 bees a large infestation? If so, what would be considered acceptable? If not, what would be considered a large infestation?

[GSF]

<Is 6.7 Varroa mites per 100 bees a large infestation?>  As usual in bee keeping, it depends on who you ask. It's my understanding that the
varroa mite manageable threshold just recently was lowered. I don't remember but I think it was something like 4 per 100 bees or 24 hours.

Makes me wonder if the powers to be are getting smarter or more crooked.

[Michael Bush]

>It's my understanding that the varroa mite manageable threshold just recently was lowered. I don't remember but I think it was something like 4 per 100 bees or 24 hours.

They are probably concerned that 60% of beekeepers aren't treating and they want to convince them to.  I noticed the definitions of everything keep changing and then they (the people who changed the definitions) act like they didn't.  Whether it's how you measure unemployment or what weight is "obese" they keep juggling things so that people who used to be defined as well are now sick and colonies that were healthy now need treatment...

[biggraham610]

>It's my understanding that the varroa mite manageable threshold just recently was lowered. I don't remember but I think it was something like 4 per 100 bees or 24 hours.

They are probably concerned that 60% of beekeepers aren't treating and they want to convince them to.  I noticed the definitions of everything keep changing and then they (the people who changed the definitions) act like they didn't.  Whether it's how you measure unemployment or what weight is "obese" they keep juggling things so that people who used to be defined as well are now sick and colonies that were healthy now need treatment...

Michael, what do you consider a manageable threshold in your hives? I realize that you are treatment free, and got that way by colonies thinning themselves, but realistically what type of mite count in the fall would you consider a threshold for winter survival? Also, what would you guess was your loss rate through the thinning process to get where you are? Thanks. G :chop:

[Tom K-B]

Michael, I appreciate your chiming in on this thread. I'd also be interested in your response to Graham. I've only been at this for two years and have sooooo much to learn. But I have read your books and have begun to take steps toward your brand of natural beekeeping. For example, in July I began removing frames that had empty comb and replacing them with foundationless frames. In my four hives I only got about ten such frames installed, but it was a start. I also did not do any treatment for Varroa this fall. So, that 6.7 mites per 100 bees came without any treatment and at a time when that hive was boiling over with bees in every box.

[Michael Bush]

>Michael, what do you consider a manageable threshold in your hives? I realize that you are treatment free, and got that way by colonies thinning themselves, but realistically what type of mite count in the fall would you consider a threshold for winter survival?

It seems to me that something changes when the mites get critical and the bees get motivated to do something.  Sometimes having a "threshold" prevents this from happening.

>Also, what would you guess was your loss rate through the thinning process to get where you are?

When I was using large cell foundation I lost 100% of them to Varroa.  Over and over.  When I got them on natural comb and small cell I was losing none to Varroa.  I lose them to winter.

[biggraham610]

>Also, what would you guess was your loss rate through the thinning process to get where you are?

When I was using large cell foundation I lost 100% of them to Varroa.  Over and over.  When I got them on natural comb and small cell I was losing none to Varroa.  I lose them to winter.

Interesting, so you use small cell foundation along with your foundationless approach? Do you generally stagger the small cell, or just have some hives on small cell and some on foundationless? Thanks. G :chop:

[Michael Bush]

>Interesting, so you use small cell foundation along with your foundationless approach?

Yes.

>Do you generally stagger the small cell, or just have some hives on small cell and some on foundationless?

At first I had them more separate to assess the difference in results.  In the end they are all mixed about half and half.

[biggraham610]

So you studied them seperate and thats where you came to your conclusion that natural is as good as small cell. Thanks alot Michael, I may employ a couple hives of small cell foundation this year just for a learning experience, I am transitioning to FL now. G

[Michael Bush]

>So you studied them seperate and thats where you came to your conclusion that natural is as good as small cell.

Yes.

[biggraham610]

>So you studied them seperate and thats where you came to your conclusion that natural is as good as small cell.

Yes.

Thanks. G :chop:

[Paul Reyes]

Sorry for what happened, something similar to your bees dieing happened to me 3 years back. What I did was clean the hives and the equipment I use because sometimes germs can build up and infect the bees as well us the colony. Ever since I've done that I've never had a large number of bees dieing at the same time.

[cam]

>They are probably concerned that 60% of beekeepers aren't treating and they want to convince them to.  I noticed the definitions of everything keep changing and then they (the people who changed the definitions) act like they didn't.  Whether it's how you measure unemployment or what weight is "obese" they keep juggling things so that people who used to be defined as well are now sick and colonies that were healthy now need treatment...

Michael, where does this figure come from? Sounds like it was taken out of thin air IMO.

[rdy-b]

 ITA a obvious case of mites--they (any testing institute)are going to put you at the back burner THE- information
you have provided requires them to educate you on this subject--you have a serious attitude about this -but
it wont pay the bills--there is a need for the poropitory information that you have sought out-dont over look the obvious
you have to keep mite levels in check--if you have more to tell please do-but my man its always
mites-dont waste time and money with a none productive approach--this is serious---let all involved have a happy seson
treat for mites-- RDY-B