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Author Topic: My Bees - R.I.P.  (Read 6679 times)

Offline UtahBees

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Re: My Bees - R.I.P.
« Reply #20 on: January 27, 2008, 08:32:23 pm »
Post Mortem things to do:

Look for Varroa feces in the cells.  Little white specks.  While you're looking in there it never hurts to look for scale which might indicate AFB.  Look for dead Varroa on the bottom board with the dead bees.  Look how the cluster is situated and if there is brood.  Are there stores sitll?  Could they get to them?  Is the cluster tight or scattered?  Bees with deformed wings?  Bees with "K" wing?

Michael and everyone - thanks for chiming in. I'll look for what you've all suggested. I appreciate the advice. No one's giving up here. It's a sad loss, but I will live and learn and roll with the punches.

I checked again today (Sunday afternoon). The weather was 50 degrees F here, and I opened the hive to reveal nothing has changed. No activity. The girls are still in the tight cluster that I found them, and they are mainly in the 2nd (from the bottom) medium box. Between the 3rd and the 4th medium super, I put an inner cover to help with the heat issue in November. The girls still had plenty of honey around them, and hadn't really moved up to the 3rd or 4th medium super yet. I believe that 3 mediums make up 2 deeps? I got excited that I had another medium w/honey left over and put that on top of the inner cover just in case they needed it. Maybe it was just too much room.  :-\

I'll disassemble and clean this week, as I think today pretty much verifies it. The locals around here seem to be getting packages in April, and I'd like to get a few a little sooner. Any one know if this wouldn't be a good idea, or where mid-march packages could be bought? As long as I have a consistent above-50 F, I should be OK, right?

Regards,

Scott

Offline Angi_H

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Re: My Bees - R.I.P.
« Reply #21 on: January 28, 2008, 02:39:21 am »
I could not find any place that did packages in March. As I to would have loved to get them by then as i have plants that will need pollinating by then. But all i can find is in April because they all wait till after Almonds.

Angi

Offline Cindi

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Re: My Bees - R.I.P.
« Reply #22 on: January 28, 2008, 10:23:37 am »
Angi, that is a bummer eh?  I guess all the bee breeders want to get full advantage of the almond pollination with really strong colonies.  I know here that many who sell packages wait until after the blueberry pollination, which is after May.

When I got my package bees the first year we got them the third week in April, they were imported from Australia.  Last year I got my packages and nucs locally at the beginning of May.  Many breeders don't send their bees out for pollination I guess and do their packages and nucs then.  Hard to say.  Sounds like you will just have to be patient and that is a bummer.  But think of next year, your bees will have come through the winter wonderfully and you will have great pollination when the weather is right for the bees next year.  Tough love eh?  Have a wonderful, patient day, Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline reinbeau

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Re: My Bees - R.I.P.
« Reply #23 on: January 28, 2008, 02:14:35 pm »
When I got my package bees the first year we got them the third week in April, they were imported from Australia. 

Cindi, this just struck me - you said your first year bees died due to mites, right?  I've read that Australian bees don't have any resistance whatsoever to mites, they don't have to deal with them over there - I'll bet that's why they were so overrun.  Just a thought...

Then again, didn't you get some Hawaiian bees or queens?  Wouldn't they have the same problem?  Hmmmm.

Offline Cindi

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Re: My Bees - R.I.P.
« Reply #24 on: January 29, 2008, 09:10:37 am »
Ann, that food for thought was some interesting stuff.  Yes, my first year of beekeeping I got packages imported from Australia.  They went gangbusters the first year, overwintered wonderfully.  I never treated for varroa the next season with them and then in the fall they all died because of hundreds and hundreds of varroa mites that weakened them so terribly before I even knew what had happened.  In those days I was still learning (well, I still am), but I was totally kniave to how bad the varroa mite affected colonies.

I even saw all the warning signs of the colony collapse that summer, but just didn't understand the warning signs.  We were taught very minimally about the varroa mite destructor.  All summer long I had seen bees crawling on the ground with kind of frayed wings.  My lessons learned so hard. 

I thought all these bees that I saw crawling around were simply old bees that had frayed wings from flying their 800 km that they do in their lifetime, before their wings wear out.  That is what I honestly thought.  Until, I was talking to someone and they said that more than likely I had a severe varroa issue.  Correct that statement was.

When I got my nucs and packages bees last season (4 packages, 4 nucs, year 2007), these were locally raised bees.  The nucs and packages were made and installed with queens that had been imported from Hawaii, Kona Italian queens).  Now not to say that the genetics are there that these bees may not be mite resistant.  I don't think that they are mite resistant one little bit, nope, not at all.

I know this because of the mite counts that I had performed throughout summer, sugar shakes and the eventual numbers of mite death after the oxalic acid vapourizing.  I know that I have taken my bees into this coming winter season with pretty close to a zero mite count.  I know that for a fact.  The oxalic acid fumigation kills all mites outside of the cells.  There was zero brood present when I vapourized so there would have been no hidden mites in the cells, zero mites.

This will be an interesting season coming up.  I will still monitor with sticky boards now and then to examine mite numbers.  I am also going to be performing tests to (listening to Old Timer's advice) for hygienic behaviour with my bees.  This will be a long arduous process to perform this, this is my understanding, but I am going to attempt to see if these bees are hygienic or not.

This is another year of experimentation for me, I love to experiment and keep records.  I just hope that I can find the appropriate amount of time to do all that I want to accomplish.  Right now, I think I am feeling a little overwhelmed with my aspirations of the upcoming season, but that is OK, it gives me lots to think about.  Eeeks, and yes, I am finding it a little difficult to get to sleep as easily as a short time ago, I have to keep my focused on relaxing and going to sleep, saying "han say" over and over, focusing on that wonder and peaceful time when our bodies heal and we think over the events of the day, waking up with that new and fresh mind.  Oh no!!!!  Man do I get off wandering in my thoughts...... :( ;) :) :)

Where was I?  Yes, you had a good thought Ann, probably those Australian colonies had zero tolerance to mites and it killed them in the second season.  I don't doubt that one little bit. But yes, I learned some extremely valuable lessons that year.  And I know the biggest thing that I know now is, I don't like the Varroa Mite Destructor one little bit.  And yes, it is the ugliest thing I have ever seen in my life.  Other than that sea leachy thing that used to grab onto my Brother's and Sister's clothes and skin when they swam and played on the beach as young children.  Have a beautiful and wonderful day, Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Online Ben Framed

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Re: My Bees - R.I.P.
« Reply #25 on: August 10, 2019, 08:04:20 am »
I am bumping this as the last post was in 2008 by Cindi. What she had to say should be informative to newer beekeepers who do not know.
Phillip
2 Chronicles 7:14
14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

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Re: My Bees - R.I.P.
« Reply #26 on: August 10, 2019, 09:25:49 am »
Good bump Ben.
Jim Altmiller
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
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