2009/2010 bee loses

[thurrock bees]

Morning all,
After losing one hive this Christmas/s to Nosema/ cold weather.

I am interested in any other lose's this year, is it worse than last year?? Was the cold weather/snowy weather effecting your bees?

In two years of beek this was my first loss, however i expected it as they were tested in sept/oct by a forum member confirming my thoughts that they had Nosema, i know it were too late by then to do anything about it, lreaning curve ,

Regards
TB

 

[Poly Hive]

As mentioned on the OA thread, I am down one colony which probably should have been in a nuc box and two nucs which were on the small side.

On saying that I have smaller ones clustering on. *shrug* Who knows what they will do at times especially wintering.

PH

 

[hedgerow pete]

I am down one colony in the shed, they were always a scaby lot so good riddence to em, as for the outsides the two at the shed are good, but getting a little light so will have to feed before the week is out, the other colony is ok but agian getting very light

 

[thurrock bees]

in Oct i collected a nest in a chimmey, well they have died sadly. they were in a nuc.

 

[hedgerow pete]

I have been through my nucs and we recoken by wieght alone as we have not looked inside we are at lest 6 out of 48 down

 

[Hawklord]

in Oct i collected a nest in a chimmey, well they have died sadly. they were in a nuc.

Might have been warmer in the chimney. LOL

 

[taff..]

I have been through my nucs and we recoken by wieght alone as we have not looked inside we are at lest 6 out of 48 down

Pete, is this more or less than you expected, do you have any idea why you've lost them?

 

[hedgerow pete]

We have planned to lose 25 % which is not to bad when you consider we had such a bad time breeding these queens. The first 25 were squished and we had to do another load quickly, so poor, or should i say below what we were looking for. Reasons we dont know untill we look but either nosima and a too cold a winter , small stores?, some nucs would just not take enough stores, no matter how hard we tried they just would not take enough down to the cells so we knew we were going to have to refeed earlier than planned, some of the nucs would just not have the sugar syrup, dont know why

 

[RoofTops]

The danger period for losses is from about now onwards. The consumption of stores will rapidly increase once (if!) the weather warms up so you can't really judge winter losses until about April.

 

[BKF Admin]

The danger period for losses is from about now onwards.

 

[thurrock bees]

Might have been warmer in the chimney. LOL

half of the chimney was taken down buy the builder, he also move the comb to the end of the garden thinking that they will fly away ( he wore a bee suit as he comes across wasp nest often). The bee's would of died in the first frost.

TB

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Everything is crossed that I don't lose any this year. They are all OK so far. I found a couple of weak colonies during OA treatment in December but these were not the ones I was expecting to be weak.

AdamD

 

[BKF Admin]

Not trying to pour cold water Adam but I have found the last couple of years that I have had 100% success upto OA treatment.

Its new year to mid February that I seem to suffer a loss with the smaller hives.

The jury is still out here whether it is down to small colony size or the OA knocking them off..