One Died

[Donovan J]

One of my hives died. It was weak going onto winter and that's why I combined it with another hive. It couldn't get enough food stored before winter and died of starvation. I provided sugar but they didnt take any of it. Strange. I just took the box off and left the bottom box because that hive it still alive but looking slim. The other two are looking good.

[ifixoldhouses]

There's not a whole lot of info there, how many bees were left? were they headfirst in their cells? what kinda mite treatment did you do? etc.

[van from Arkansas]

Xerox, sorry you lost a hive.  That seems to be a part of beekeeping now a days.  I lost a breeder quality hive last Sept, the bees pollinated a garden that was poisoned [thanks Iddee for your text] and varroa finished her off.  I had a pile of dead, trembling, quivering, shaking bees in front of the hive, sad!!

Today was 71F so I took the opportunity and quickly inspected the top box of a few hives.  One hive has a small cluster, my only hive with a solid black, carni queen.  I don?t have much experience with the Carniolean but have been told by several beeks: the carni keep very small winter clusters with explosive spring build up.   My point is I may lose this hive, I just don?t know for sure at this time.  The hive was treated this year 4 times with OAV, has plenty of honey but like I said, a small cluster.  Go figure.

All hives had plenty of stores with at least one hive with eggs and larva.  Yea?!?! eggs and larva on December 25th in North Arkansas.  Previous week was in the 40F high.  Most of my bees were in the bottom section and I did not inspect the bottom deeps.

So, Xerox/we split next spring, make up for your/our loss and we will both have an exciting year for honeybees in 2020.
Enjoy the Holidays,
Van

[Donovan J]

There's not a whole lot of info there, how many bees were left? were they headfirst in their cells? what kinda mite treatment did you do? etc.

There was a good amount of bees left and yes there was a lot head first in the cells. That's how I came up with the assumption that they died of starvation. Only found one bee with varroa and I didnt treat this hive because it didnt have a heavy mite load.

[Donovan J]

Xerox, sorry you lost a hive.  That seems to be a part of beekeeping now a days.  I lost a breeder quality hive last Sept, the bees pollinated a garden that was poisoned [thanks Iddee for your text] and varroa finished her off.  I had a pile of dead, trembling, quivering, shaking bees in front of the hive, sad!!

Today was 71F so I took the opportunity and quickly inspected the top box of a few hives.  One hive has a small cluster, my only hive with a solid black, carni queen.  I don?t have much experience with the Carniolean but have been told by several beeks: the carni keep very small winter clusters with explosive spring build up.   My point is I may lose this hive, I just don?t know for sure at this time.  The hive was treated this year 4 times with OAV, has plenty of honey but like I said, a small cluster.  Go figure.

All hives had plenty of stores with at least one hive with eggs and larva.  Yea?!?! eggs and larva on December 25th in North Arkansas.  Previous week was in the 40F high.  Most of my bees were in the bottom section and I did not inspect the bottom deeps.

So, Xerox/we split next spring, make up for your/our loss and we will both have an exciting year for honeybees in 2020.
Enjoy the Holidays,
Van

Yeah it was disappointing. I found the queen and I looked and didnt see any eggs so I'm going to assume the other hives arent laying yet as well. Hopefully they'll start soon to give a little boost to the population. We're supposed to get another warmup this week.

[Donovan J]

As you can see there is a big cooldown about every three weeks. So weird how predictable they are and hope fully we get some warmer temps. The average temps go up from here!