Another lost colony story

[peteinwilts]

An even carpet of dead bees may suggest an unclustered hive. This may suggest a failed queen.
The bees become demoralised, break the cluster and the cold gets them.

If the queen was alive (and one of the last to die), she may have been seen on the frame with a pocket full of bees. This was not reported.

The supercedure cell mentioned could be the clue. A failed queen in autumn, and producing a non mated queen is the same as no queen. A broken cluster.

Varroa may have been present, regardless of whether a direct cause or a secondary factor.
Last year, with its cool summer was a good year for varroa...

I sublimated a couple of years ago in winter, and never lost so many hives. All resulted in carpets of dead bees. This year I trickled and sublimated different hives for a test for loss statistics. I have not yet checked the results... maqs however is the devils work and success is tricky

 

[North End Bees]

Check the Little Bee's post, starting I believe #96. It's 4:44 p.m. here and I am going off the matrix to lung in some cold fresh air outside.

That was by way of agreeing with your previous comment that bees work different sources.

 

[Earthboy]

No worries, LB. I was trying to help someone catch up with the thread and that seems to be the point for clarification. Sometimes, it's hard to follow a long (winded) thread.

 

[Earthboy]

Dani, depending on the circumstance they might, but I have not seen my bees do that through SSB. Sometimes a swarm might land under the SSB and possibly they might hand nectar through SSB, however. But such occurence is rare and unusual for me.

 

[North End Bees]

Dani, depending on the circumstance they might, but I have not seen my bees do that through SSB. Sometimes a swarm might land under the SSB and possibly they might hand nectar through SSB, however. But such occurence is rare and unusual for me.

I've seen bees sharing food through the OMF (SBB) but think it's being passed out, i.e silent robbing.
I've not heard previously of nectar being passed in under the floor.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Again my observation are just that; my experience and that of friends who I remember meeting in the distant past to blether about bees.
The first time I saw it was during a massive flow when I couldn't add supers fast enough. It never crossed my mind that it could be robbing.

 

[Earthboy]

Dani, I do not dispute your observation at all. Anything is possible given the peculiar circumstance you describe and it takes a sharp eye to observe that. Remember how "scientists" touted how humans are the only animal using tools based on sloppy authoritarian (often male-dominated) "science"? I appreciate your spirit of challenge.

During a flow, let alone a massive one, robbing is rather rare. Dearth often invites robbing.

 

[manek]

An even carpet of dead bees may suggest an unclustered hive. This may suggest a failed queen.
The bees become demoralised, break the cluster and the cold gets them.

If the queen was alive (and one of the last to die), she may have been seen on the frame with a pocket full of bees. This was not reported.

The supercedure cell mentioned could be the clue. A failed queen in autumn, and producing a non mated queen is the same as no queen. A broken cluster.

Varroa may have been present, regardless of whether a direct cause or a secondary factor.
Last year, with its cool summer was a good year for varroa...

I sublimated a couple of years ago in winter, and never lost so many hives. All resulted in carpets of dead bees. This year I trickled and sublimated different hives for a test for loss statistics. I have not yet checked the results... maqs however is the devils work and success is tricky

That might be true, I guess, although there were definitely bees active in January and early February. A clue (to myself which I didn't take enough notice of) was my inspection note of 5 February:

Old fondant almost finished, removed it, added another tub. Removed entrance block, which was blocked by dead bees.

Note though that there was plenty of fondant on 25 January, so it implies there were enough bees to empty a whole tub between those two dates.

 

[Rosti]

Just read down this thread. Not automatically starvation, not necessarily varroa, esp without signs of varroa defecation (imo). I am currently beeless, sadly my 3 over wintering colonies suffered this fate last winter 2019-20. It was a very warm winter, the bees were very active throughout winter, varroa levels were low and well controlled. All 3 colonies had fondant and had not isolated themselves away from that fondant (they hadn't starved). This winter has been mainly warm and wet (only that short 2 weeks after xmas where it was cold). Active 'summer' bees have a life span of about 6 weeks, we hope that wintering bees might make it to 6 months. Winter 19-20 was a very warm winter, the bees remained quite active and didn't ball. I have a feeling that workers in my colonies simply wore themselves out, with no laying and no prospect of worker replacement and a high death rate over short time frame the colonies dropped below the collapse threshold. This last winter feels similar in character. What next for me? I failed to attract any swarms last year. Just bought swarm lures to try again this year. I live in Yorkshire you see, if I were to pay for bees I'd be forced to move out.

 

[madasafish]

" varroa levels were low and well controlled "

When did you treat and with what?

 

[Murox]

@Rosti have you considered N.Ceranae? if you notice a colony is not exhibiting a normal rate of buildup in the springtime, an assessment for nosema would be wise. There are suggestions that signs of infection include a lack of growth ~ early death of foragers and nutritional stress, and also going “off feed;” a colony can suddenly collapse. The only way to tell whether your bees were infected by nosema is by looking through a microscope, not by merely observing signs of dysentery

 

[Earthboy]

Rosti,

I feel for your loss. Nothing hurts me more than losing bees; I feel the palpable gut punch as I have lost three very strong feral colonies I was hoping to graft from. Huge piles of dead bees. God awful. When the polar vortex hit us, the cluster just could not move up to the second deep, full of honey. The last polar vortex hit was in 1890's around here. I had wrapped my bees for the first time before the hit. Things happen like this.

 

[Rosti]

@Rosti have you considered N.Ceranae? if you notice a colony is not exhibiting a normal rate of buildup in the springtime, an assessment for nosema would be wise. There are suggestions that signs of infection include a lack of growth ~ early death of foragers and nutritional stress, and also going “off feed;” a colony can suddenly collapse. The only way to tell whether your bees were infected by nosema is by looking through a microscope, not by merely observing signs of dysentery

Murox, thanks for your thoughts/observations, my colonies failed to come through winter, they failed late winter, rather than as a result of poor spring build up. It was too early for brood accession to have been an issue

 

[Murox]

Murox, thanks for your thoughts/observations, my colonies failed to come through winter, they failed late winter, rather than as a result of poor spring build up. It was too early for brood accession to have been an issue

Yes I may have misled you a little. Nosema ceranae is not just a springtime disease, its found in all seasons, summer and winter, both nosema and varroa buildup are easily missed. If your colonies went into winter with an infection in a weakened state collapse could easily follow.