Don't repeat what happens to me. I have said before I am probably the worst about learning the hard lessons of life, over and over. This happened last year to me once, not to the degree of this year, but it happened, and I didn't learn a lesson, obviously....I know that I learned this lesson this year and it won't happen again (I can bet my bottom dollar it won't, hee, hee).
I was out working in the big bee garden infront of the apiary. The ducks and chickens were accompanying me, scratching, digging, thinning out the phacelias and borages, they do a good job of that. These cover crops are so thick from reseeding that they must be thinned. I was digging out the masses of chamomile that grow like a carpet in the early spring. Thanks to my Sister, hee, hee, who thought that she would plant three plants of chamomile around a small part of this garden. By the way, if you don't want a carpet of chamomile, don't plant it where you don't want it for time and eternity....it is extremely invasive, but not as invasive as the spearmint that has gone out of control too, but is gone, (except for hundreds of new starts that are probably beginning underground).
Ooops, where was I...I know....ramblin', right, I ramble.
The bees were having the times of their lives, the day was very warm and sunny. Except, one colony. I walked by the apiary to see a whack of dead bees on the landing board. Oh, no!! My first thought was pesticide poisoning. I entered the apiary, just as I was, this needed immediate attention. I had no protective clothing, only a sprayer of sugar syrup that I keep on hand at the entrance to the apiary. I removed the lid and inner cover, looked in, not a single bee on the top bars. Not good. Bees were landing from the other colonies were landing on me, checking me out, I must have been OK, I was not bothered. I closed back up the hive. This needed deeper investigation more immediately now that I saw this.
Went back and suited up, no smoker yet, just my suit and head protection. I took out several centre frames to have a really good look. Brood, two frames of it, capped, two frames on either side with lots of drones cells, some capped, some not, lots of bees with their heads inside the cells, and a big mound of bees on the bottomboard. Very obvious. Starvation. Bad me.
I closed the hive back up and proceeded to begin to check each colony starting with the one on the north end. No smoke yet, just the syrup sprayer in hand. The northern colony had honey stores, about 3 frames of capped brood (these are all housed in two chamber deeps). Closed them back up.
I went to the house and made a batch of 2:1 sugar syrup. That involves a 10 pound bag of sugar. Filled up baggies, enough for all the colonies. Lit my smoker and away I went. Each of the other colonies all had a frame or more of honey. I gave them food anyways, they are all going gangbusters, just like the dead colony was just a few days before.
Why this colony used up so much honey is beyond me. They had lots of stores not that long ago when I checked each one.
We have all had weird weather as of late, I know that, we all know that. The weather in my area has been nasty and too cold for the bees to have gotten out more than a couple of times during the past month. They have gathered no nectar, and not that much pollen either.
For that matter, all the colonies only had a tiny bit of pollen patty left, they will need more, I will be feeding them those tomorrow. Today I have to obtain bee feed pollen and then make patties. Very obviously because they cannot get out of the hives very much they have required the use of extra pollen food.
These are mistakes made, lessons that I keep trying to learn, and I should have known better, considering how bad the weather has been for so long.
These bees are all Italians, my first year of keeping Italian bees, they have plusses and minuses I guess.
I am requeening with Carniolan bees this year. I have 10 Carniolan queens from California (Strachan Apiaries) that will be arriving in the next week or so, to the queen breeder in a neighbouring town. I will be picking them up soon.
The Italian bees are great brood raisers during the wintertime, I know that. They have a looser cluster, I know that. They consume more food, I know that too.
My experience has been with Carniolan bees, I have not kept the Italian breed before. The Carniolan overwinter in smaller clusters than the Italians, a tighter, smaller cluster, and don't raise as much brood as the Italians during wintertime, hence they consume less food. I forgot what I had learned about the Italians needing more winter stores, I should have checked their food stores more often. That was a lesson hard learned.
So, these lessons of life, yep, yep, they don't get me down, they just make me a better beekeeper.
I put all the whack of bees into a large plastic flat container, in the sunshine with a net placed on top. Some of the bees did survive. They must have simply been chilled, some came back to life and are flying around in the container, floating to the top of the mesh. It is sitting on my kitchen table, I am awaiting the strong daylight to see how many of these bees survived, I suspect not many. I have fed some sprays of sugar syrup on the mesh, so they can have some energy, should more come out of their cold trance. These survivors I will place into a container and when it warms later today will dump infront of another colony, they will sort things out. Beautiful day, our beautiful life. Cindi
Topic: My hard lessons learned in life!!! (Read 2853 times)