The resilience of bees continues to surprise

[Lesgold]

I folks,

During my last pre winter hives check in May, I noticed that there were two hives in my bee yard that were very weak. One looked as though the queen had died and the other was very small and only contained one frame of bees. The queen was present and was laying but there was only a small number of nurse bees to tend the brood. I thought about disease but couldn?t see any obvious signs and the small patch of brood looked healthy. The bees had clustered in a corner of the top box in a hive that was three deeps high. My plan was to leave the hives until spring prep and then render down the frames and start again. I don?t feed bees sugar at all so both hives were doomed. In a week or so, the first proper inspections will take place as the weather is starting to warm up during the day. I did have a quick walk around today just to see how things were progressing. Looks like the spring buildup is starting as there is a bit of pollen being carted back by the girls. When I walked past one of the weak hives, I noticed the odd bee coming and going. It didn?t appear to be robbers so I just stood and watched. What surprised me was that a couple of bees carrying pollen dived into the hive. I couldn?t believe what I was seeing. I walked back to the shed and grabbed a smoker and jacket and returned to have a look to see what was going on. A small cluster was spread across the corners of about 3 frames. At a guess, there would have been less than a frame of bees in total. The queen was present and she was laying. How they survived has got me stumped. Trying to maintain a reasonable hive temperature would have been a real chore for this small group. When I looked closely, there were eggs and larvae of varying stages and the cluster of brood was compact. Every cell in that tight cluster had something in it. If I had varroa present, I doubt that these girls would have survived as they did.

[Ben Framed]

> If I had varroa present, I doubt that these girls would have survived as they did.

I doubt it too Les. Have you found varroa so far in any of your hives?

Phillip

[BeeMaster2]

Les,
Several years ago, in May, I was called to remove an open air hive by a company security guard. It was a little bit larger than the size of a football. The guard said that she first saw it in early March and she wasn?t worried about it because it was no bigger than her fist. That hive survived one of our coldest springs in a long time including rain with no protection other than the bees themselves.
Jim Altmiller

[Lesgold]

Checking off the hives will start next week. We are finally getting day temperatures up around 20C and the bees are actively looking for food.  That?s amazing Jim. You would think that it is an impossible task but they survived and grew in numbers.