Awful disaster

[Juststarting]

I was so pleased yestersday having happily combined two hives but devastated today!

I went to look at hive and was alarmed by the number of bees clustering on front of hive esp as none of my other hives had more than a few flyers.

So donned beesuit and went to investigate.

Bees very distressed and angry.

Lifted of crownboard and horror - thousands of dead bees - suffocated/heat exhaustion. the wax in top super had melted and collapsed and some in second super also.

Appears that many bees became trapped in supers as honey and dead bees built up. I had slit newspaper so dont know why they were unable to get thru before they overheated but unfortunately they hadnt.

I cleared up mess as best I could (hope bees can do a better job) and removed all remaining newspaper, just hope that I havent killed queen in top BB - frames and bees seemed ok in here but didnt push my luck looking closely as they are boiling over and very cross.

I wouldnt be surprised that if she is okay they decide to swarm as they've had enough of this hive and I didnt clip her yesterday as I didnt want to distress her prior to combining.

Not quite sure what to do differently if I have to combine two hives again as it wasn't very warm yesterday - perhaps another empty super although third super was just drawn comb and foundation.

 

[fox403]

suffocated/heat exhaustion. the wax in top super had melted and collapsed and some in second super also.

Not quite sure what to do differently if I have to combine two hives again as it wasn't very warm yesterday

if was thousands not sure why u wanted to combine,,

 

[Juststarting]

Hi Fox - One of the hives (larger) was queenless so combined with smaller hive with a queen I really liked!

 

[BBG]

Were the slits you put in too big and the bottom lot managed to get up and commit mass murder.

We alwats prick with cocktail slit - takes them longer.

This said we used two pieces of newspaper last time and think we hadn't made sure they were joined properly so bees got to each oter v quickly via overlap.

Two days later - several hundreds of bees outside hive dead.

Propolis screen for ventilation next time/half covered if cold??

Sad;y part of the learning

BOL