Bring out your dead..

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Joined
Apr 4, 2020
Messages
72
Reaction score
64
Location
West Sussex
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
6
Temp up to 12 degrees today after the severely cold period. Dead being dumped out. Anyone else seeing this?
 

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Mine were flying like it was a summer's day ... really surprised me - a bit warmer and dry this morning and they were out in good numbers. There's been a few dead ones on the landing boards .. not masses but enough to tell me that the undertakers are able to do their job - usually a sign that the colony has enough numbers to keep the hive in order. I'd cleaned the landing boards off over the weekend and there were between10 or 20 corpses on the landing boards this morning - nothing to worry about as far as I'm concerned.

I think the flights were probably poo runs after 6 days of frost and a few were picking up water a pot of compost in my allotment.

It started raining again down here about noon so that put paid to the activity and its been raining ever since and windy as well.
 
Mine were flying like it was a summer's day ... really surprised me - a bit warmer and dry this morning and they were out in good numbers. There's been a few dead ones on the landing boards .. not masses but enough to tell me that the undertakers are able to do their job - usually a sign that the colony has enough numbers to keep the hive in order. I'd cleaned the landing boards off over the weekend and there were between10 or 20 corpses on the landing boards this morning - nothing to worry about as far as I'm concerned.

I think the flights were probably poo runs after 6 days of frost and a few were picking up water a pot of compost in my allotment.

It started raining again down here about noon so that put paid to the activity and its been raining ever since and windy as well.

As here in Scotland
 

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One of the hives was quite busy the other three but so much. We have between 10 and 20 dead on the landing boards
 
Nothing doing at mine - heavy rain and strong winds all day prevented any leaving the hive. Today is forecasted to be better.
 
Checked on mine this am
During the cold snap absolutely zero external activity but this morning in double figure temps every colony had dragged out a few corpses
Yeah same here, they couldn’t be bothered to move them too far tho😀
 

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Same, but I also had some good 'funny five minutes' from nucs. One hive will be really busy for five or ten minutes, then will settle back down. Its something I see all year round.
 
Hmmm,
Tuesday: 15c
Hive 1 had around a hundred dead, partially blocking the entrance. I cleared out the dead and not a single bee bothered to investigate.
So peeped in the central hole in the Abelo crownboard and found them busy at the top of the box. So gave them some fondant.
Hive 2 was busy with few dead to be seen.
Vaped both hives
Wednesday: 14c
Checked the hives and found no further dead at Hive 1 and some bees flying. Approx 50 varroa on the inspection board.
Hive 2 had around 80 dead dumped outside the hive. Very few bees flying. Approx 50 varroa on the board.

Hive 1 was quite wet inside the entrance, so applied Vaseline to all mating faces of the poly boxes “filling“ the slight gaps as I believe they can cause water ingress - the rain has been excessive and hitting the hives horizontally for a few days, with more forecasted this weekend.
 

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