Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: TwT on January 25, 2009, 05:26:00 pm
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so for this winter all my 28 hives look good, I feed during warm days also to help make sure they have plenty and not burn through their stores fast when warm days. I feed with top feeders and open feeders ( boardman feeders set out)
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My 1 hive is doing great. I also feed during the warm days. The other beek here said he lost 3 hives out of 30 but they were weak going into the winter. He did an inspection and said he is still seeing eggs and larva in the brood. Odd to have during January I think.
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7 out of 7 still hanging in there.
Not too many warm days here however.
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I Lost one of two hives. I haven't checked the other for a couple of weeks now though. :-\
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I lost the weaker of my 2 hives just recently. The other hive looks good so far.
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2 hive still going strong.....I hope! Been too cold to really check on them.
Judging by the sound and the dead I've seen there OK.
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I went to my main beeyard today late this afternoon and not a lot of activity because of this sneaky cold front that moved in yesterday. I saw some flying and did a really quick check on a few.
One was on the ground flipped over bees absconded, bummer, another it looks like a rat tried to get in and some of the bees were clustered on the exterior of that hive, a small amount of perhaps 25 bees, the rat lost however.
If I have to make a guess, I think I'll come out of this winter with 45 hives, went in with 50. Will have to go back and check when the weather warms. I also will have to build a new hive stand and move about 8 hives as the ground they are on now is sinking and they are tilting badly.
...JP
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Wow so many people here with only 2 hives just like me. Well I had 2 hives, but just lost one. The other looks good so far.
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I have lost 4 out of 40. I hope that there won't be anymore. But we have 2 more months of winter to look forward to. And it seems that Febuary is the worst month. With a little luck the rest will make it.
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2/2 for us. I would have lost one but requeened in Dec and moved it to a nuc and fought off wax moths. Yesterday I inspected and it has a nice little half moon of capped brood on both sides of the middle frame and population is growing.
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lost one of my three hives. The temperature got up to 40 f. on Friday but returned to single digits on Saturday. I also fed in the fall, got a couple of gallons into each hive. I will be putting pollen substitute on in Feb.
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So far I'm 11 for 11, I think. A couple of them are stacked, and then its a bit harder to tell which box the buzz is from...
I have at least 2 that are in single deeps, and were from swarms in August...I fed them but still don't know if they will have enough food till march...not that I can do much now, and am not too worried about them right now.
Rick
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I have at least 2 that are in single deeps, and were from swarms in August...I fed them but still don't know if they will have enough food till march...not that I can do much now, and am not too worried about them right now.
Rick
I lost two hanging late season swarms b/c they couldn't store enough food. They were weak going in and died as a result. I suppose my apairy will be the stronger for it with time.
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lost 1 hive and another is looking iffy,but other 4 are looking ok.was outside just a little while ago and bees were in and out of couple of hives and temp here is hovering around 40 with ice and snow on the way! bill
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With my bees in NY, and myself in FL, I really don't know how they're doing, but I'd sure like to know! I guess I will have to wait until I return to them in the middle of March to find out for sure :roll:
justgojumpit
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I'm one for one so far! I hope I don't lose it. It looked really good last week. Temps here are around 20 deg. Didn't open it up, but was still pretty heavy and lots of buzzing going on when I knocked on it.
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it was warm today so I took a walk by the hives and one didn't have any activity at the entrance, opened it up and 2 deeps of nothing, so chalk up 1 hive losed for me this winter.
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Same here. I walked around the bees today and found 1 out of 15 dead. Some are really lite and I have sugar dust on some of them. I hope they all make it.
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I am in the clear so far with my one hive.
They were out flying in droves today - took off the entrance reducer so they could bring out the dead. They seemed happy. Only peeked in the top because I thought it was still kind of cold and they seem to have as much stored honey as they did when I checked them a month ago. I know that isn't possible - but that's what it looked like!
I either have the greatest girls in the world or I am in for a very rude awakening this month! (Keep your fingers crossed for the greatest girls in the world option, please...)
- Jess
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1 for 1 so far(here's hoping it makes it the rest of the way) It hasn't been above 30F in over a month so I haven't been able to inspect or feed, but I did stick my ear to it yday and they answered the disturbance with a pretty vigorous buzzing. Only 5 dead in the snow this week.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I only lost one but that is all I had. It will be a late start for me.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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!
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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
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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...
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I lost one just being a weak hive to start with in november and two too the flood we had in December this year .
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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When assessing deadouts, besides lack or presence of stores another consideration is whether or not the entrance was blocked by snow and for how long. I've know of hives to sufficate when the entrance has been blocked due to snow blocking the entrance and no other vent to allow fresh air into the hive. The bees can seal a hive up air tight.
An excess of dead bees building up on the bottom board so that neither the air can get in or the bees get out is another way to lose a hive.
Both of those are reasons to have a small vent/entrance at the top of the hive.
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Talked to my mentor...real bad news for him...tragic...
Out of 62 colonies 3...yes 3 are left. This is due to IMHO lack of care. All hives had very old comb, were never treated, heavy pollenation hives. It's really sad for him.
I tried to help him this summer but he refused to deal with foulbrood issues, SHB and mites. He reuses comb from other sick hives and has destroyed his operation. I've learned a great deal from this. His comment to me was.." Do as I say..not as I do"
I will be following MB's lead with my girls...all natural comb, treat only as a last rersort. I have most of my equipment ready now and have started preps for spring.
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Lost both my hives , so start over again :(
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I think once beekeepers get and and count the hives in the northeast, there will be more dead than expected. A poor fall flow and a long cold spell, has taken out a good number of hives.
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Did A check today. It was pushing 70 or a little above. Queens are laying --- hives stronger than I expected.
All are alive @ this point, 5 ten frame and two 5 frame nucs. I will need to watch the nucs close, they will need a new home soon.
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I have 3 hives all look good, keep my fingers crossed :lol:
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Talked to my mentor...real bad news for him...tragic...
Ugh...that sure isn't a mentor...that is a mental!
I've lost 1 out of 11 so far...a late swarm that quite frankly I didn't expect to make it. Large cluster, little honey. I made sure I checked the rest of them, and there were a few others like it that got some sugar and creamed honey.
Rick
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It was pushing 70 or a little above. Queens are laying --- hives stronger than I expected.
same here! I was feeding mine and when I opened the hives they were huge, the bee's are telling me it will be a early spring, so that means spring will start early then when my fruit tree's bloom we will get a freeze, never fails :(
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I don't wanna get too excited but today its supposed to be 50 out and and tomorrow they say 60+.... if it stays nice like this all week I'm calling EARLY SPRING and I am putting my beesuit on to check things out.
This winter has been very short for my area... We didn't really get good frosts/snow until like late novemember and and if its over mid Febuary!! woot!!! I will be visiting the apairy daily, hope to see them flying soon.
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if its over mid Febuary!!
:lau:
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Lost 3 out of 12 as of the weekend. One had a small cluster in one side, honey on the other side...starved. One with a ton of bees no honey(they had honey in the fall, but used it all to produce that ton of now dead bees). The other I had queen issues in late fall that I thought I had corrected...guess not! The others look good for Feb.
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Lost 1 hive.. kinda looks like CCD. The hive had plenty of stores but where did all the bees go ??.. There were a total of about 15 dead bees period. This hive was fine in the fall and up till the real cold set in about a month ago.The 1st couple nice warm days we had last week I noticed no activity so I popped the top and it was empty other than the few dead bees. ????
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Phew, rather perplexing thing here. Eight out of 9 colonies dead. The only one alive is really alive with 6 frames of bees in the upper deep. I checked really quickly the other day, doing nothing short of lifting the lid to peak on for a couple of moments. I was going to feed pollen patties and decided before I brought them outside that I should check to see if all were alive. Needless to say I was pretty shocked. All colonies, save one, which was in a single box, had gone into winter with lots of food supplies, large clusters of bees. I have no clue what has gone on and won't know for a few days. These losses, in my mind, are pretty severe, I will be contacting the province Bee Inspector, Jacquie Bunsie, to see if she would like to come and do the initial inspection with me, to ascertain what may have gone wrong. I really thought that these colonies would all fly through winter. I have not experienced these winter losses before. Only one time in the fall with 9 colonies collapsing with varroa mite issues, but nothing that ever died throughout the wintertime.
The only thing different this year is the extended period of time where it was below zero, which is unheard of for so long in this area. We may get a couple of below zero days, but not the cold we have had. We got our first snow around the middle of December and it still has not fully melted in all places in my yard, unheard of....anyways, time will tell the tale of what has happened. Right now. No clue.
Maybe it is just the way things should go. Moving one hive will be much more simple than moving 10. I am being prepared by the mysterious unknown for moving day. There have been many mysterious things going on to make my life easier when we find that new home. Have a most wonderful and awesome life, day, health, that being the most important. Cindi
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cindi, that's a bummer. let us know what you find. i'm not sure the weather can be the only reason. our winter was much colder than the last few, but my bees have come through better. so far (knock on wood) no losses. if it were just weather, i should have had the same kind of loss? our weather is much the same.
only thing i did different this years was feed heavily late into fall. we had a warm early fall through november. then it changed overnight into cold and nasty. i also left dry sugar on the inner covers, but i always do that and they didn't take much of it anyway.
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We have hardly thought about bees all winter. But, happy to report that hubby went out today and was able to confirm that all 4 of our association demonstration hives are looking good, in spite of the long cold winter we have had so far. It was only about 15 degrees F today so he didn't open any of the hives to check for stores- hopefully we will have a warmer day here before much longer. This is the "starving month" for bees up here, so I may pop them open soon even if it is a little chilly.
Hive #4 was started from a package last May. One of our new club members lost one of his queens while installing packages so I gave him the queen from Hive #4. Had a heck of a time getting a new queen raised- we had horrible weather and I think it was almost 8 weeks before we had a laying queen. Since our heavy nectar flow is in June, this particular hive just never got going. I figured it had a 50/50 shot at making it through the winter and I am pleasantly surprised to see that it is still alive.
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Phew, rather perplexing thing here. Eight out of 9 colonies dead. The only one alive is really alive with 6 frames of bees in the upper deep. I checked really quickly the other day, doing nothing short of lifting the lid to peak on for a couple of moments. I was going to feed pollen patties and decided before I brought them outside that I should check to see if all were alive. Needless to say I was pretty shocked. All colonies, save one, which was in a single box, had gone into winter with lots of food supplies, large clusters of bees. I have no clue what has gone on and won't know for a few days. These losses, in my mind, are pretty severe, I will be contacting the province Bee Inspector, Jacquie Bunsie, to see if she would like to come and do the initial inspection with me, to ascertain what may have gone wrong. I really thought that these colonies would all fly through winter. I have not experienced these winter losses before. Only one time in the fall with 9 colonies collapsing with varroa mite issues, but nothing that ever died throughout the wintertime.
The only thing different this year is the extended period of time where it was below zero, which is unheard of for so long in this area. We may get a couple of below zero days, but not the cold we have had. We got our first snow around the middle of December and it still has not fully melted in all places in my yard, unheard of....anyways, time will tell the tale of what has happened. Right now. No clue.
Maybe it is just the way things should go. Moving one hive will be much more simple than moving 10. I am being prepared by the mysterious unknown for moving day. There have been many mysterious things going on to make my life easier when we find that new home. Have a most wonderful and awesome life, day, health, that being the most important. Cindi
Wow so sorry to hear Cindi. That is one heck of a positive spin you put on it though concerning moving only 1 hive.
Keith
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BearCreekBees, would you please update your profile so we know your location? seems like some cold temp's where ever you are at!
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Done TwT. Thanks for the heads' up- I did not realize the location was not shown.
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Two hives of Italians alive and well here in Northern Kentucky, Boone County.
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Cindi,
So sorry to hear of your losses.
SH
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that is a bad year cindi, sorry for your loses
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Oh my forum friends, thanks for the condolences....smiling.
That is terrible loss for surely, and I am pretty disgusted actually. Disgusted at myself for thinking that everything SHOULD be OK and they turned out not. I really and seriously at am a loss as to why these deadouts -- big clusters, lots of food, no varroa mite issues, the counts were very low last fall, no reason for this to happen, as far as I can tell. I will more than definitely get the bee inspector to come out and check things out with me. I am not touching the colonies until I can get some answers. I hope that it is not a disease. But still, that seem still so unlikely too because I keep a pretty good eye on them, and narry have I seen any sign of trouble, inside the colonies, or on the outside with broken, run down bees, with any kind of wing deformation or anything, it is a mystery. Oh well, I love mysteries and will have it solved, smiling. Have that great, most awesomely wonderful day, and that great health to boot!! Cindi
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Started one hive last April, learned a lot, then one day a bear ripped it to shreds.
I have a package of Italians due in April. Putting up the electric fence next weekend. Assembling new hive components in March.
-T
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So far so good. There are three of us working with hives in eastern Washington. Of the 3 hives, 1 failed, 1 was weakened and the other is doing just fine. I'm the lucky one. The one hive that was a loss did not have wooden bottom board (only a screen bottom). All of the bees in this hive appear to have frozen to death. There was still some honey to be found. We had a lot of snow here this winter. The weakened hive didn't get much attention after the honey was harvested, so there was some serious loss due to starvation. My girls seemed to have done well. I provided them extra feed during Oct. and November. Once the snow melted in mid-January, I used the plastic bags feeding method that I found on the forum. It worked really well.
I just checked my hive this afternoon. It's about 48 F and the air is very still. About 2 - 3 dozen girls were flying around the hive. One landed on my ear and seemed to be checking to see if I cleaned my ears. It was just nice to see them doing "their thing". If the weather is nice tomorrow I provide them a boardman feeder during my lunch break and on Saturday provide them a top feeder with sugar water and "Mega what-ever". I'd like to get them building up for spring.
With luck, I'll start my second hive when the packaged bees are delivered to Spokane. My daughter's father-in-law really likes our honey, so I need to ramp-up production.
It's nice to starting again.
Regards,
Tucker
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I started with 14 hives going into the Winter and lost 6 so far. The 6 that I lost, I believe were from a severe wind storm we had on New Years Eve. It knocked six of the hives down. They were exposed to some severe winds for most of the day until I got home from work. It then dropped down to the single digits that night. I can't wait for the spring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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In Northern Utah, wintered 4 Italian hives: 2 strong, 1 below average, 1 small and weak hive.
I have the 2 strong hives and they are still strong and are flying regularly in the cold,
The 1 below average is still doing well but this strain just does not fly much in the cold,
The 1 weak hive is still not dead but is nearly there. Dont know if I can rescue it - I have fed, added patty, even added a heat bulb. They just wont make any new brood, wont fly and I am not good enough to quickly identify the unmarked queen. How do you easily and cheaply mark a queen anyway? I will probably replace this hive with Carni's, or with a split that I can tell will happen shortly.
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Scott, hold tight on that colony that you have given pollen and the heat source to. They just might pick up. If the colony is really small, they may have a teeny tiny little patch of brood being raised, little by little, sometimes they can raise a little patch even the size of a teeny, tiny baseball or even smaller. Hold on, wait on them. Have a great, most wonderful day, health. Cindi
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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.
3 of 3 at the out yard for a total of 5 out of 7 surviving. This is encouraging. I'm going to raise some queens this year and get back up to 15.
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Cindi, so sorry to hear of your losses, my losses are more than normal this winter. I've had storm issues, kid issues, racoon or possum issues and some starvation issues, my fault there, thinking they had enough feed.
Down to about 35 now, from 50.
My mentor lost a bunch this winter as well.
...JP
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i have to revise to 1 loss so far. the chalkbrood hive didn't make it. they were flying on the warm days, but checked for food yesterday and found that one dead. can't say i didn't give them every chance, so i don't feel to bad.
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I had 6 going into winter 4 left. One small one I did'nt think it would make it and one I have no idea. I'm surprised as how well they have done lots of Bees in each hive. We had a very cold and nasty and winter here in Wis. I started feeding yesterday as it was 60 degrees yesterday and the girls were really enjoying themselves.
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Hi all,
I went into the winter with three healthy hives. Yesterday we had some fine temperatures so I had a look. One suspect was a dead out but the other two were going strong. Of the two left one was a bit light so I put a bag of sugar on just in case. Last year I made the mistake of leaving the paper edges outside and lost a hive. Won't repeat that mistake. I took pictures of the dead out and would like some input but not sure of the process to get them posted. Many of the bodies looked like they were missing their stinger and had been hollowed out or eaten by some bug? Any clues?
Cindy, those are some serious losses and I feel for you. I strive to buildup to about ten hives and as I lost all three last year and I now have two almost through winter, I hope the addition of two new packages and a possible split will yield five going into next winter. It does take time when living in a less than bee perfect environment.
Best wishes,
Jack
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well found one more empty today, so for thats just 2 since last fall, aint been a bad yer for me, hate to here about other in here having a bad year..
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Yesterday the temperature hit 40 degrees here for the first time all winter. I ran out to check the hives and was pleasantly surprised to find them all alive with lots of flight activity. I was a little worried about one hive which we took the queen from to give to one of our new club members after he lost his while installing the package. The "donor" hive raised a new queen but she never started laying- we had lousy weather the week she should have been taking her mating flight so she either never got out, or got out and never made it back to the hive. I gave the hive another frame with eggs and they did manage to raise a queen the second time around, but that hive never did very well and I wasn't sure they would survive the winter, so I was happy to see that they are still with us.
If it EVER warms up here I will be anxious to open the hives to check them. I guess that won't be until after this week's expected blizzard!!!!
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Near the end of last season I had 6 swarms and a nuc. The nuc looked strong as did one swarm. So I combined 2 into 2 others. I lost the nuc in Feb. balled up and heads in comb and 2 others. I was told it could have been me not venting the top. I vented the last 3 hives and they are going well. I tried to feed them a little but they arent taking very fast. 1 qt every 1-2 weeks.
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One of four. The hive that I thought was the strongest :'(
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One of four. The hive that I thought was the strongest :'(
Funny isn't it? The hives I thought were going to be dead survived.
I was talking with the land owner where my outyard is. Apparently over the winter, the outer and inner cover blew off during one of the wind storms we had. He doesn't know how long the lid was off for, but he said it was snowing right into the hive, and obviously there was the bitter cold wind. This hive is as strong as the last time I saw it in the fall. :shock: Crazy. I'm glad he noticed it and put the covers back on for me.
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We lost one out of 4. It was a new hive, my only top bar hive so I don't know if my inexperience was the cause. I really don't think they had built up enough honey and was just too small. I'll try again this year.
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1 out of 2. 1 was not strong going into the winter.
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I started last spring with four. Ended up with 7 but no honey.
I have 6 at present and haven't opened any up yet. But will do so soon.
dook
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I regrettably have to revise my one hive hanging in there. Was getting more and more concerned about them and the fact that I wasn't see any flying even on decent days. So I went into it today after work. All dead. It looks like they starved out surrounded by stores. small pockets of bees buried head in literally inches from capped honey. Disappointing to be sure. So at least I have some capped honey to feed my packages. 1 3lb package of Russians coming in a couple weeks and a package of Caucasians next month. With a cutout planned next weekend if the weather cooperates. Too bad it's probably too late to order an extra package :-D
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I regrettably have to revise my one hive hanging in there. Was getting more and more concerned about them and the fact that I wasn't see any flying even on decent days. So I went into it today after work. All dead. It looks like they starved out surrounded by stores. small pockets of bees buried head in literally inches from capped honey. Disappointing to be sure. So at least I have some capped honey to feed my packages. 1 3lb package of Russians coming in a couple weeks and a package of Caucasians next month. With a cutout planned next weekend if the weather cooperates. Too bad it's probably too late to order an extra package :-D
From you location, the fact you are a Northern tier state which have suffered such severe cold weather, and you discription of what you found I would have to say what you found was a case of the bees being forced to maintain cluster for such a long period of time to a long cold period that the bees couldn't break cluster to transfer more stores into the center of the cluster and they starved because they couldn't or wouldn't move.
BTW, Caucasians are Russian Bees, just from around the Black Sea instead of in the northern Urals. Caucasians were the bees I found along the Turkish Black Sea Coast when I was there thanks to Uncle Sam.
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I lost my one hive they froze to death the cluster got to small to survive found a small cluster of dead bees none with there heads stuck in any cells. Found the queen in the middle of the cluster. :'( Will have a nuc in a week :-D