Why are my bees dying?

[son800]

I transferred my bees into new boxes last fall with 4 frames of old comb and 4 frames of white comb fed them the same and treated them the same.  We checked them on January 9th and had had 8 frames of bees.  We checked them on January 17th and the boxes without cleats died and the boxes with cleats were still in good shape.  I have enough sense to know that the cleats aren't lethal to bees but I can't figure out why the ones w/o cleats died.  Does anyone out there in bee land have any suggestions?

[Dallasbeek]

Can you give us more specifics?  How many hives, how many with cleats, how many without cleats, how many died, etc.

[Aroc]

What is a cleat?

[iddee]

Ditto Aroc.  What is a cleat?

[BeeMaster2]

Yes, What is a cleat?

[son800]

A cleat is an additional board installed on each end of the hive body used as a handle.  You can see them on Sawdust Makers picture on each of his posts. 

To answer the question about how many, we run about 15,000 hives and around 2500 are non-cleated and out of those about 2000 are deadouts.

[BeeMaster2]

Son800,
On the boxes without cleats, do you have hand holes that are cut into the wood?
If so that creates a thin spot which would make a cold spot behind them. I would not expect that to bee that much of a difference but who knows.
Another factor is that the cleats provide a little roof over the entrance where the bees beard up. It is hard to believe but could there have been an aerial spraying that the cleats acted as a little roof over where the bees beard and clean?
Jim

[Oldbeavo]

Were they all in the same location, cleats and non cleats?
Does Texas get cold enough for cut handles to make a difference?

[Acebird]

I transferred my bees into new boxes last fall with 4 frames of old comb and 4 frames of white comb

Why did you do this?  I would never do this in the fall.  It doesn't give the bees a chance to propolize the walls which is both a disinfectant and a form of varnish for condensation to occur.  They need the condensation on the walls to survive because it is their only source of water when they don't have flying weather.  If you want to change out your equipment do it in the spring or early summer.

I don't think hand holes make any difference.  Most of the beekeepers up here have hand holes in their boxes.