Problem Solved: Bees starving

[TimLa]

Prelude:  The weather got up into the 90's a couple of weeks ago, the hive was going full blast, so I added a medium to the deep.  Then, temps fell to 40's at night, two weeks of rain and cool temps.

Chapter One:  Inspected the hive about a week into the poor weather, a few dead bees on the landing, hive was calm to the point of lethargy.  Hmmm.

Chapter Two:  Several days later, there are bees crawling around on the ground in front of the hive, many dead bees on the landing.  Whipped up a batch of sugar water, installed boardmann feeder at 5:00 PM.

Chapter Three:  9:00 AM the next day, the feeder is empty.  Made another batch of syrup, used chick waterer on top of the hive (one pint).

Chapter Four:  1:00 PM same day, all feeders are empty.  Made up a half gallon, put it in a poultry waterer on top of the hive.  It's empty now (7:00 PM).

Conclusion:  these ladies are starving.  Fresh loads of sugar water have clouds of bees within an hour.  Is this what we call a 'dearth'?  Wife is adding 20# of sugar to the shopping list....

... the weather has been very cool lately.  I hived the bees April 20 as the snow was melting.  Hope they make it.

-T

[Rodni73]

Keep feeding them!

[Brian D. Bray]

Yes keep feeding.  The weather here in Washington this Junuary has been bad, still getting snow down to 2000 feet.  I lost 3 hives to starvation and Sean Kelley, Buckley, also lost three.  The bees used what was left of winter stores to gow brood for forage and then the rain hit.  3 weeks later and lots of dead bees because they couldn't forage and they used up what they had gathered.  Got to feed my some more tomorrow.  Then go get an injured racing pigeon.

[Two Bees]

Feed, Feed, Feed!  They will stop taking the syrup when they are no longer hungry.  In addition, if you want them to draw out foundation, they have to have a nectar flow or syrup.

I have been feeding my bees since I installed the packages on April 20.  When there was a nectar flow, very little syrup was consumed by them.  But when there is not a nectar flow (such as now) , those rascals can lap it up!

I use gallon glass jars over the inner cover hole.  In refilled both of the jars on my hives this past Saturday (midday) and one of the jars was empty when I check it late yesterday (Tuesday).   That's a gallon in a little over three days.  Soooooo.........I refilled it!

[poka-bee]

T I almost lost my hives for the same reason.  They are still bringing out some dead but not the #'s as earlier.  Sounds like you caught it in time.  Mine had so many dead that it blocked the entrance on the bottom, good reason to have a top entrance!  The live ones couldn't get out to forage making the problem worse.  Once they could get out it was like the pics of overwintered hives...poop all over the yard..poor girls not only couldn't eat, they won't poo in the hive so had to hold it.  Mine are scarfing bout 4 cups in 24 hrs.  Sean completely lost 3 hives. The blackberries are coming but will be another couple/few weeks.  Good thing we always have an indian summer, it's fairly warm till end of oct so they can get all of the straggling blooms.  Good luck! FEED FEED FEED!!  Jody

[TimLa]

Update:

They are all over that feeder, finished off 1/2 gallon in two days, so I'll add another gallon later today and take a peek inside the hive.  Much more activity now (it's warming up a little as well), and I have a few foragers on the deck, which is about 50 yards up the hill from the hive.  This is good, but will keep feeding.

Whew!
-T

[TimLa]

HOLY COW these ladies are hungry!

1 quart 1:1 sugar syrup gone in 3 hours.

Added a gallon of the same syrup at about 3:45PM, as of 5:00 PM they consumed a quart.

Did a fairly thorough inspection, hive is a deep and a medium on top of it.  The medium:  little drawn comb, what was there was fresh.  Several hundred bees on it.  The Deep:  On the sun side of the box, filled with nectar (probably sugar syrup).  Dark in color.  Progressing towards the center, empty and dark colored comb, nothing capped.  Bees all over the frame.  Moving to the 'shade' side, fresh comb.  Didn't see anything capped.  This could be a Bad Thing.

Pulling a brood frame, covered with bees, I spotted a bee with what looked like orange/yellow pollen all over it.  That was new.  Incoming bees have some pollen, which is good, but no capped cells in the hive.  If this hive survives, I probably was about two days from disaster.

20# of sugar is on the eternal shopping list until someday these kwazy bees decide to start looking at flowers, of which there are a ton now.  And they are ignoring.

-T

[poka-bee]

Tim, mine are still scarfing sugar water too.  I was also just a day from disaster.   They are foraging though, coming in with bright yellow & beige pollen.  I had some capped brood, one set was dark capped, don't know if they were dead or not.  Then some lighter capped & larva.  Saw a couple of drones today. & orientation flights the last couple of days.  I'm still not sure I have queens left, tomorrow is checking day so we shall see if there is any new smaller larva.  Still not good @ finding eggs..someday!  Good  wishes for you & your girls.  Jody

[TimLa]

Well, they are finally finding other forage besides syrup - they are all over the thimbleberry flowers this morning, and where they where consuming 5 quarts of syrup per day, they only consumed 2 quarts from the 1 gallon feeder I put out yesterday around 6:00 PM.  I may move to the 1 quart feeder this afternoon and see how much they take.

[TimLa]

After a day of slowing down on the syrup, 4 quarts consumed in 3 hours!  I wonder if some of it is robbing, but until I started keeping bees (and one of the reasons I started) is that I had never seen a honeybee here since I moved here in 1998.

The two gallon pot is now a permanent fixture on my stove.....

-T

[Michael Bush]

If they are starving, of course, you should feed them.  Keep an eye on the brood nest.  Don't let them pack it with syrup.  The queen needs somewhere to lay.