Author Topic: Hive loses so for? (Read 19130 times)

heaflaw · « **Reply #20 on:** February 01, 2009, 09:38:24 pm »

I've lost 4 out of 17. Earlier than usual, it got too cold for bees to fly. I should have monitored better and fed.

rast · « **Reply #21 on:** February 01, 2009, 09:46:11 pm »

So far, no winter losses, a 5 frame nuc has filled out to 8 frames in the past 3 weeks. Aug/Sept was the killer for me last year (Maybe Fl. doesn't count in this poll). I may have to take them down and put them in Tracy's backyard this summer :-D.

MustbeeNuts · « **Reply #22 on:** February 01, 2009, 10:03:44 pm »

Well I checked my hives this weekend, lost 3 of them, down to one now. I don't know why, lots of dead bees, they were fairly dry inside, but the brood area was cleaned out, they wouldn't move up to the full super of honey just above them. Well here's to learning. Sugar feeding the remaining hive.

MacfromNS · « **Reply #23 on:** February 02, 2009, 08:29:34 am »

I only lost one but that is all I had. It will be a late start for me.

bassman1977 · « **Reply #24 on:** February 02, 2009, 10:43:41 am »

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.

Davepeg · « **Reply #25 on:** February 02, 2009, 06:22:08 pm »

We have lost 1 of our 4 hives this year. Today was warm (50 degrees) and sunny, I was glad to see activity at 3 of the hives. I only opened the one hive that did not show any activity and was sad to only find dead bees. This is an observation top bar hive. The other hives are the traditional hives. We'll try again this year. It always saddens me to lose a hive.

TwT · « **Reply #26 on:** February 02, 2009, 07:49:17 pm »

Quote from: bassman1977 on February 02, 2009, 10:43:41 am

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.

I dont use one any more, they put hives a a disadvantage from what I seen, the only good to them is in the spring time to keep bearding down but I found out with good top ventilation plus a slated rack will do that also, I have gone to a (what I would call a pollinators entrance) 2 opening bottom board, it only has a 1 1/4" opening on both sides but in different corners and with ventilated tops keeps bearding down to a minimum, my screen bottoms are stack, people say they are good for mites to drop out of reach of bee's and not climb back into the hive, sounds good but my lives fine without them and my hives build up faster in spring with out SBB's! they seem to eat less in winter, I just don't use them any more! closing up in winter I would say is best for a hive, helps retain heat and no cold drafts.

bassman1977 · « **Reply #27 on:** February 02, 2009, 08:48:01 pm »

Quote

I dont use one any more, they put hives a a disadvantage from what I seen, the only good to them is in the spring time to keep bearding down but I found out with good top ventilation plus a slated rack will do that also, I have gone to a (what I would call a pollinators entrance) 2 opening bottom board, it only has a 1 1/4" opening on both sides but in different corners and with ventilated tops keeps bearding down to a minimum, my screen bottoms are stack, people say they are good for mites to drop out of reach of bee's and not climb back into the hive, sounds good but my lives fine without them and my hives build up faster in spring with out SBB's! they seem to eat less in winter, I just don't use them any more! closing up in winter I would say is best for a hive, helps retain heat and no cold drafts.

I like it in the spring/summer to keep the bearding down also. I do not like a top entrance personally. In the winter I do, to keep the condensation at a minimum, but I find that with a top entrance, you have more bees buzzing around and getting angry while looking for their hive entrance when doing an inspection. Unfortunately though, some of the hives have a tendency of making a top entrance on their own, despite a good attempt at preventing it.

woodchopper · « **Reply #28 on:** February 02, 2009, 10:18:31 pm »

Our 3 hives in Maine are doing fine but 4 out of our 5 in MA. are no longer with us. My fault as I should have checked and fed them sooner than I did. I figured they had enough stores but didn't take into consideration all the flying they did on warm days. We had a cold snap a few weeks ago and they wouldn't break the cluster to move over to the end frames to feed. Had I been smarter I could have moved the full frames closer to them. Expensive and stupid mistake on my part.

tlynn · « **Reply #29 on:** February 02, 2009, 11:05:09 pm »

Quote from: rast on February 01, 2009, 09:46:11 pm

I may have to take them down and put them in Tracy's backyard this summer :-D.

Haha! Hmm, will the roof do? Probably a good place to discourage hive beetles anyway! I'm running out pf space for my own hives mostly because of my wife's expanding vegetable gardens!

EasternShore · « **Reply #30 on:** February 03, 2009, 07:04:53 pm »

Well folks, Went out yesterday and have some bad news...Out of my 3 tests hives 1 is nearly dead..it was my strongest and most productive hive for splits. This was the hive I wanted suggestions on and got no replys to speak of. Should have moved it into a nuc.
My tree hive had no Bees flying like the others, so I'm guessing it died as well. This tree had the most bees of all my hives, I won't be able to open it ( it's a tree folks) so I can only guess mites may have killed it. I don't want to destroy the tree to find out.

So at this time I'm at 50% loss. Not too bad for a first year startup..all swarms and very little time to prepare. I can thank all of you for all the wonderful help you have given me.

My other 2 colonies were out and flying at 50 degree's...in force!

Cindi · « **Reply #31 on:** February 03, 2009, 10:05:31 pm »

Quote from: EasternShore on February 03, 2009, 07:04:53 pm

it was my strongest and most productive hive for splits. This was the hive I wanted suggestions on and got no replys to speak of. Should have moved it into a nuc.

Paul, this is a good example of how we MUST get the answer that we seek when we ask for help from our forum friends, so important. Sometimes there are such mountains of posts, that if a post does not get responded to, it gets lost in this mountain of posts.

It is so important, that if we don't get an answer to a question, that we ask that question again and again if necessary, until we get the help and response that we need so desperately. Maybe if this original question had been answered, Paul, you might have still had this colony. I am sorry for your losses. Try again next year, as hard as you have this year, things will get better.

Remember everyone, ask your question until you can get the answer to your question that makes you feel good about understanding. Understanding is powerful. Have a wonderful year this coming year for us all, great day, health. Cindi

EasternShore · « **Reply #32 on:** February 04, 2009, 10:41:35 am »

I'm really not suprised about my losses. These colonies were all swarms caught late in the year. I did the best I could with the time I had. This year will be a building year and I will be fine.

Thanks everyone..without you I'd be hiveless...

Grant11 · « **Reply #33 on:** February 04, 2009, 11:35:49 am »

I lost one just being a weak hive to start with in november and two too the flood we had in December this year .

EasternShore · « **Reply #34 on:** February 08, 2009, 08:40:57 am »

Correction on losses..my breeder colony..which I assumed was dead is just fine...they slept in that day I guess. Buuuuut the tree hive appears to be dead. They may be way down deep and not flying like everyone else.

bassman1977 · « **Reply #35 on:** February 08, 2009, 10:31:00 am »

Quote

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.

Took my two deadout hives apart. The one hive, what a horrible site. Just mounds and mounds of bees in a pile. Looks like they ran out of food where they were clustered and died because it was too cold to move. The second hive...not sure. There were a lot of bees in there going into winter but there wasn't a lot when I opened the hive. Lots of food and I couldn't tell where the cluster would have been. Bjorn's idea about the bees maybe being too old could have been the problem with this one. I wonder if most of the bees left the hive to die. Anyway...I still have hives at an outyard to check so hopefully things are going good there.

rose · « **Reply #36 on:** February 08, 2009, 04:40:25 pm »

After this brutal Michigan winter we have had (probally still going to have) I'm happy to report this is my first hive, my first winter and today it got to be 42 outside and sunny right on their hive and they were flying, plenty of them. :-D

wadehump · « **Reply #37 on:** February 08, 2009, 08:30:36 pm »

3 out of six dead . they were all flying 21/2 weeks ago before our snow and ice and below zero weather, hoping for an early spring

JP · « **Reply #38 on:** February 08, 2009, 08:33:43 pm »

Quote from: wadehump on February 08, 2009, 08:30:36 pm

3 out of six dead . they were all flying 21/2 weeks ago before our snow and ice and below zero weather, hoping for an early spring

Do you know for certain? Have you opened them up? Look at the posts above, some hives just take longer to get going than others.

...JP

SystemShark · « **Reply #39 on:** February 08, 2009, 11:01:13 pm »

Its been nice this weekend so I figured I'd go and give the hives a tap to see if I heard anything. Both the swarmed hives sounded fine but there were allot of dead bees on the ground near each of 'em. I havn't heard anything from the hive I removed in September but I'm still optomistic. Can't wait for winter to be all done with, I'm excited to get in there and give'em a peek.