Can the colony be saved?

[Pope Pius IX]

Hello everyone.

Still finding my way around the forum so apologies if this is posted in the wrong place...if I could be directed to the right place, I'd be most grateful!

Had decent weather today so opened up the hive for the first time since before Christmas.

The super was full of honey and full of bees. I didn't see the queen (she's marked, and there's no super-brood excluder) so pretty sure she wasn't there. I also didn't see anything indicating laying, on any frame.

The brood box below was pretty much deserted, very dark wax, fungal growth, a few dead bees in one cluster with mould around them and sticking them together...generally not a good image at all. It may have been some kind of foul brood, or just the natural consequence of a very cold, very wet winter and spring.

My eight-year-old daughter thinks she may have seen an unmarked queen but isn't totally sure; I didn't see it myself. It was on the diseased brood frames, she said, but then flew off, possibly back to the hive.

My experience is very limited but can anyone tell me how best to move forward? You don't need to sugar-coat it; if they're going to die, they're going to die.

What I did do was remove the brood box and all of the brood frames; the bees who are alive are now in a super with a second super on top, no brood box. Although they didn't need it, I think, I did put some syrup solution in the second super in a feeder.

Prior to today I'd seen on warm days numerous bees at and around the entrance, returning from flights, and today - which round here is overcast but warm enough - I saw only one bee until I opened the hive. I'm assuming this may be because to get out a bee needed to negotiate their way through the horrendous brood box.

So...is there anything I can do to save the colony, and irrespective, what should I do about the brood frames that are diseased? What is the best way to deal with these? I have a steamer but I don't know if that's a good idea. I can't see what's wrong with it, but who knows?

I sort-of assumed they'd be either OK or long-dead, and this particular set up is a new one on me...if they're going to die, should I not simply pinch the remaining honey? Or what? Help!

Thanks all!

 

[derekm]

a super full of bees and the brood box desserted at this time of year seems sort of normal. Just make sure they have stores and leave them to sort it out.

 

[masterBK]

Common but not normal. If no eggs or brood at this time of year you may well have a problem eg queenless or more likely a superseded unmated queen that has not started laying. With either of these two scenarios you may well end up with just drone brood.Another scenario is the original queen is present but not laying maybe infected with Nosema or sacbrood.
Get an experienced beekeeper to have a look. It maybe everything is alright and you simply looked at the wrong combs so didn't see the clues eg eggs , larvae etc.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The queen would have been up with the workers in the super looking for somewhere to lay, she may have been marked at the end of last summer, but since then, it may have worn off or she has been superseded.
The frames in the brood box sound fairly normalish to me - the little cluster of dead bees? I've seen that happen before - it's as if, during a warm period, the bees got active the, when it got cold again, a small amount of bees get separated from the rst and basically it's localised isolation starvation within the colony.
When you say fungal growth I take it you mean a bit of mould?
Without actually looking over your shoulder, what I think you're seeing is a perfectly normal end of winter brood and a half colony, no disease at all, a bit like the first visit to your static caravan after being shut up for the winter (not that I would ever contemplate owning a caravan - static or otherwise )
Personally, I would have just brushed off those dead bees and left them to it, they'll soon clean the whole thing up when the colony strts to expand again, you are in danger now of leaving the queen short of laying space.

 

[pargyle]

Hello everyone.

Still finding my way around the forum so apologies if this is posted in the wrong place...if I could be directed to the right place, I'd be most grateful!

Had decent weather today so opened up the hive for the first time since before Christmas.

The super was full of honey and full of bees. I didn't see the queen (she's marked, and there's no super-brood excluder) so pretty sure she wasn't there. I also didn't see anything indicating laying, on any frame.

The brood box below was pretty much deserted, very dark wax, fungal growth, a few dead bees in one cluster with mould around them and sticking them together...generally not a good image at all. It may have been some kind of foul brood, or just the natural consequence of a very cold, very wet winter and spring.

My eight-year-old daughter thinks she may have seen an unmarked queen but isn't totally sure; I didn't see it myself. It was on the diseased brood frames, she said, but then flew off, possibly back to the hive.

My experience is very limited but can anyone tell me how best to move forward? You don't need to sugar-coat it; if they're going to die, they're going to die.

What I did do was remove the brood box and all of the brood frames; the bees who are alive are now in a super with a second super on top, no brood box. Although they didn't need it, I think, I did put some syrup solution in the second super in a feeder.

Prior to today I'd seen on warm days numerous bees at and around the entrance, returning from flights, and today - which round here is overcast but warm enough - I saw only one bee until I opened the hive. I'm assuming this may be because to get out a bee needed to negotiate their way through the horrendous brood box.

So...is there anything I can do to save the colony, and irrespective, what should I do about the brood frames that are diseased? What is the best way to deal with these? I have a steamer but I don't know if that's a good idea. I can't see what's wrong with it, but who knows?

I sort-of assumed they'd be either OK or long-dead, and this particular set up is a new one on me...if they're going to die, should I not simply pinch the remaining honey? Or what? Help!

Thanks all!

The problem that you may now face is that, if the super is full of honey and the super you have put on is feeding them syrup - if you have got a queen in there and she was about to start laying - she may not have room to lay.

I would have left the brood box in place with the super of stores, not fed them and let them get on with it. I very much doubt you have foul brood in there - sounds more to me like a deserted space that the bees have left behind as the place they will frequent is where it is warmest and where the store are .. ie: in the super on top of the brood box. In adding another super (and let's face it - it's not that warm yet) you have given them more space to heat where they don't want it ... if your super had drawn combs and you really didn't want to leave the brood box in place the empty super would have been better below the one filled with stores ... you might want to consider swapping them round.

It's still very early in the year to be fiddling with them - I know, as a beginner, it is always tempting but the reality is that there's not much that can be done if you have an ailing colony and messing about with them only adds stress and disturbance that they are best without. Searching for the queen at this time of the year is a waste of time ...

What looks like manky messy comb to you is often not the case with the bees - if they don't need it they won't maintain it, when they need it they will clean it up.

@JBM - SNAP !

 

[Pope Pius IX]

Thanks SO MUCH everyone for replying so quickly with so many thoughts and ideas.

I'm attaching a couple of pictures of the frames, and am super-happy to go out, add the brood box back in with these frames in it as long as anyone can tell me it looks like a reasonable shout...then I'll just leave them alone for a while!

Thanks again everyone!

 

[masterBK]

The beebread (pollen) pattern looks not quite right on the second photo. No obvious signs of disease. I think the real clues to what is going on will be on the shallow (super) combs

 

[Pope Pius IX]

All the super combs looked fine with plenty of cells capped and containing honey. No sign at all of anything else, though.

I think I may go and put the brood box back...

 

[Erichalfbee]

I think I may go and put the brood box back...

Yep and take the empty super off and they certainly don't need syrup

 

[hemo]

I would stop fiddling.
Even here close to the W.Sx /Surrey county lines it is still to cold to open up.

 

[Pope Pius IX]

Ok, I have done the last fiddling for a while!

I put the frames back in the brood box, including four that I'd been storing in the fridge for lack of anywhere else to put them, then took away the top super and the feeder and added the brood.

Bees now have a brood box, and a super with stores, and I'm not going to open anything up until ... well, later.

I'm in Surrey myself so would be delighted to know when everyone else reckons it's a good time to inspect?

Thanks again to everyone. I know it's never an exact science but it certainly helps having a load of people I can ask for help!

 

[hemo]

I wait until temps settle and are warmer, some think we have had T-shirt weather all ready. A day here and a day there doesn't count in my books.

In years past I have been in to quickly look on March 1st but that year we had about 16-18c of settled warm weather, each year is different last year was 1st week April and I double supered a colony on DB with 16 frame of brood. Within 6 weeks I was taking off the first lot of honey.
One has to play literally by ear and the weather, get a stonking warm start and the flow starts early if not any early major flow may be slower. If you have no choice then sometimes one has to dive in to carry out minimal manipulation usually give laying space or remove excess stores but for me no more.

Some of the beeks at the LBKA don't think much and are governed by past events and their records, I keep telling them you can't work that way. Know your bees, don't fiddle unless needed and wait for the weather to settle and warm. Some years that might not be until May as in the year the beast came along.

 

[polymath]

The other thing is when it warms up i.e. temp over 15 degrees and no cold wind, what you can do if you have another colony or a friend has either put frame of eggs or at least a piece of comb with eggs on it into the colony. If they start making emergency queen cells on it there is a good chance the colony is queenless and then you can be sure to decide on what the best option is for you. Queens are good at hiding!