Welcome, Guest

Author Topic: Losses  (Read 2812 times)

Offline Georgia Boy

  • Field Bee
  • ***
  • Posts: 500
  • Gender: Male
Losses
« on: March 17, 2013, 01:02:13 pm »
Just curious as to your total hives you have.

How many you have lost.

To what you did you lose them shb, foulbrood, starvation, and so on.

If you want to do it by year say for 3 years back that would be great since I know totals change each year.

Just trying to see what I might be up against.  I have done a lot of reading but would like to hear from you guys real world experience.

Thanks

David
"Give it All You've Got"
"Never give up. Never surrender."

Offline bailey

  • Field Bee
  • ***
  • Posts: 876
  • Gender: Male
Re: Losses
« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2013, 03:07:32 pm »
I expect 25% loss on first year in a new bee yard.
It seems they like to swarm and abscond till the area is saturated with bees

The next year my expected losses drop heavy.   
Weak hives going into winter might starve or freeze but boomers usually do great.

I might lose 5% in winter after that if I am diligent in doing my work in the fall.
Main reason for my losses are weak hives in the fall or swarm outs without the new queen not making it back from her mating flights in the summer. 

Other than that I have no foul brood.  Little hive beetle trouble and some wax moth trouble. 
Both hive beetle and wax moth problems are hives that went queen less and got weak in most cases with me.

Bailey
most often i find my greatest source of stress to be OPS  ( other peoples stupidity )

It is better to keep ones mouth shut and be thought of as a fool than to open ones mouth and in so doing remove all doubt.

Offline AllenF

  • Galactic Bee
  • ******
  • Posts: 8192
  • Gender: Male
Re: Losses
« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2013, 03:12:46 pm »
50%.   About average for years that I slack off and don't feed or take care of them after a dry late summer.  I will be back up to 12 after swarm season.   All put back on drawn foundation from the year before.   

Offline Joe D

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 2246
  • Gender: Male
Re: Losses
« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2013, 05:15:35 pm »

I've gone through 2 winters now and have lost 2 hives.  Started with 3 hives, up to 6 last year and down to 4 now.  Lost 1 to robbing, and checked a few weeks ago the 5 was doing fine.  Went down in Fla for a week, when I got back one had no bees, dead or a live, just gone.




Joe

Offline buzzbee

  • Ken
  • Global Moderator
  • Galactic Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 5930
  • Gender: Male
    • N Central Pa Beekeepers Facebook Page
Re: Losses
« Reply #4 on: March 17, 2013, 05:54:36 pm »
Hive beetles make them abscond Joe?

Offline Dimmsdale

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 119
  • Gender: Male
Re: Losses
« Reply #5 on: March 17, 2013, 10:03:30 pm »
Had 2 out of 3 freeze this year.  2 that died were 1st year packages.  My survivor hive is 2 years old and looks great.  Haven't had to treat that hive for mites yet.  Looking to make a couple splits from that one this year.  Have a couple of nucs from central pa coming soon.

Offline buzzbee

  • Ken
  • Global Moderator
  • Galactic Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 5930
  • Gender: Male
    • N Central Pa Beekeepers Facebook Page
Re: Losses
« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2013, 10:51:48 pm »
Had 2 out of 3 freeze this year.  2 that died were 1st year packages.  My survivor hive is 2 years old and looks great.  Haven't had to treat that hive for mites yet.  Looking to make a couple splits from that one this year.  Have a couple of nucs from central pa coming soon.

Nucs from Mike or Duke?

Offline BlueBee

  • Galactic Bee
  • ******
  • Posts: 4587
  • Gender: Male
Re: Losses
« Reply #7 on: March 17, 2013, 11:25:01 pm »
I lost at least 10 this winter, out of around 30.  However, I’m pretty pleased with those results because every failure is a learning experience.  I have accumulated lots of data now about what will fail. :) 

We had a decently cold winter this year, so the data collected is more valid than last winter’s experiments (record heat last winter) and I ran more hives than in years past.  Most of my losses were small nucs in homemade polystyrene boxes.  Most beeks would have combined the nucs in the fall, but I wanted to run more thermal experiments with newer foam designs to learn more about the thermal limits of bees and boxes.  The purpose of wintering the nucs is to emulate Michael Palmer’s “sustainable” apiary model. 

Offline capt44

  • Field Bee
  • ***
  • Posts: 740
  • Gender: Male
  • If it don't work I'll always think it should have
    • RV BEES
Re: Losses
« Reply #8 on: March 17, 2013, 11:33:26 pm »
I lost 2 out of 37 due to robbing.
I was still sore from surgery and couldn't take care of the situation and if I ask someone to put a reducer on they would look at me like, "I know your not talking to me"
One was a weak hive from a late swarm and the other was 2 hives merged in September.
Richard Vardaman (capt44)

Offline Bush_84

  • Field Bee
  • ***
  • Posts: 813
  • Gender: Male
Re: Losses
« Reply #9 on: March 18, 2013, 12:25:40 am »
Robbing was an issue in early fall due to my noob eyes not noticing until it was to late.  Last winter I had 2 of 2 winter fine.  Then in late spring I made a split of my tbh.  One of three didn't get queen right.  The other two didn't build up well and the robbing started.  I honestly blame the tbh design.  Both tbhs froze early in winter.  My warre started to starve then died as I tried to feed them failed candy that oozed on them.  The same with my langs.  They both had small populations and the oozing candy of death finished them off.  My warre and langs had some dysentery as well. 

So my lesson this winter has been that fall feeding is extremely important as is mite treatments.  I will also never ever try fondant or candy again.  Dry sugar it is.  Add in the fall to an upper entrance eke and leave it alone until it's time for pollen patties in march. 

Hope that helps.  I try to learn from others mistakes, but I often find myself learning from my own mistakes.
Keeping bees since 2011.

Also please excuse the typos.  My iPad autocorrect can be brutal.

Offline MTWIBadger

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 96
  • Gender: Male
Re: Losses
« Reply #10 on: March 18, 2013, 01:40:40 am »
I am down to three hives after starting with seven going into the winter. 

The remaining hives have over 60 pounds of honey left which is common after I started insulating with 2 inch insulation.
None of my hives died of starvation as the dead ones all had plenty of honey.

I have checked 10 out of 15 bee trees that I use as a trapout line.  Only four appear to be alive so the feral hives took a hit this year.  We had a dry summer limiting the knapweed honey flow
and over a month of smoke limiting visible at times to under a mile.


Offline dfizer

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 289
  • Gender: Male
Re: Losses
« Reply #11 on: March 18, 2013, 11:42:59 pm »
I have been raising bees for three years - the first two winters I suffered complete losses.  Each year I started with three hives - the first two years I started with packages of Italians, this past year I started with 3 nucs purchased from Merrimack Valley Apiaries.  They were Carnolian hybrid bees.  This past year I had the nucs in the hives on May 6th.  One got to be so prolific I was able to pull off a split 2-1/2 months later.  Each hive built strength and took on personalities of their own.  Now being up to 4 hives I did everything in my power to make sure they made it through the northeast winter.  Knock on wood - they are all still thriving with adequate numbers - even the small one that was the offspring (split) from the largest hive. 

The only thing's that I did differently were, I purchased and installed nucs and did not start with packages.  Next, I treated for mites in the early fall with Apiguard given that I had found evidence if mites.  Also, I insulated the top of the hive above the inner cover and left them a top entrance (3/4 in. hole) in the front and back of the hive.  Additionally, I fed honey balls beginning in February even though the hives were still heavy.  The reason for this is that many of the bees were on top of the frames in the upper deep. 

To summarize, I have not lost any hives / colonies this year however both of the last two years I had 100% loss @ 3 hives each year.

I am one happy beekeeping dude although I'd be a whole lot happier if the flowers would start to bloom and this snow storm was not dumping an inch of snow each hour for the next 14 hours!

David 

David     

Offline Joe D

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 2246
  • Gender: Male
Re: Losses
« Reply #12 on: March 19, 2013, 01:59:01 am »
Buzz, I didn't see any SHB's, there was brood in 4 frames, pollen and honey in several.  In the upper deep there was 4 or 5 wax moths on the 3 center frames.  Everything else looked  o k.  but saw no beetles.  I have put all 20 frames in the freezer anyway.  Have them ready for some more bees.




Joe

Offline schawee

  • Field Bee
  • ***
  • Posts: 977
  • Gender: Male
Re: Losses
« Reply #13 on: March 19, 2013, 02:52:44 am »
I had 97 hives before the flood from a hurricane hit;  lost 47 hives but building back up to 63 now.  will be back to 90 soon               schawee                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
BEEKEEPER OF THE SWAMP

Offline goatmanbees

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 51
  • Gender: Male
  • The name is in reference to Pan.
Re: Losses
« Reply #14 on: March 19, 2013, 08:11:32 am »
Had 13 in the fall. Lost 1 to robbing(yellow jackets) and 3 to the winter.

Bill

 

anything