Colony Losses

[For want of a better word]

Different weather, we already have spring pollen coming in regularly. I've been in each colony and checked queen status and stores. My suggestion is to fit in a spring inspection as soon as pollen is available.

I lost one colony from queen failure late last fall, the colony dwindled to nothing in December.

Crikey FP... just Googled your location... you are on the same latitude as Cairo, Egypt!!

My cousins in Nova Scotia Canada are still digging their way out of snowdrifts!!

Yeghes da

 

[Fusion_power]

Not quite, Cairo is about 4 degrees south of me latitude wise. I'm at 34°06'57.6"N 88°02'49.0"W and Cairo Egypt is at 30°02'24.0"N 31°13'48.0"E. This does not give any idea of the weather we experience. Snow is possible through late March or even early April. The earliest generally safe date to set out tomatoes is April 15th though we can still have hard freezes for up to a week after.

 

[beeno]

a hand full of bees left in a hive can make it look ok at this time of the year when flying

Yep, was it Storch that said that you cannot determine the size of a colony by watching the activity at the hive entrance as a caveat against everything else you can learn?

 

[BrianO]

Different weather, we already have spring pollen coming in regularly. I've been in each colony and checked queen status and stores. My suggestion is to fit in a spring inspection as soon as pollen is available.

I lost one colony from queen failure late last fall, the colony dwindled to nothing in December.

Hi Fusion

Different climate, not applicable here.

Contrary to above, pollen available here evident by returning foragers on mild days, ( see my earlier post in this thread ) but No Way can I or anyone in the UK start going thru a brood box at this stage. Today it is Baltic !!

5 degrees

 

[Tremyfro]

Bitter cold wind here.....still a few hardy...or foolhardy bees coming out for a look. All have stores and peace and quiet for some weeks yet to come.

 

[Poly Hive]

Oh but climate don't matter or so I am told...LOLOLOLOL

PH

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Oh but climate don't matter or so I am told...LOLOLOLOL

PH

careful!

 

[Fusion_power]

My colonies harvest pollen at 6C on bright sunny days. A few of them stretch this a bit down to 4C. I routinely pop the cover and heft one edge of each hive to see how a colony is doing on days when temp is 10C or higher. Brief brood inspections can be done at 15C and full brood manipulations at 22C. Today's high looks to be about 12C and the weekend might give one or two days at 20C. https://weather.com/weather/tenday/l/35570

 

[bjosephd]

Sadly my area has about an average summer temperature of 21oC... hopefully on inspection days it gets to the other side of average!

 

[Colin reilly]

Have lost two so far.
I am blaming a lack of young bees/overall small size of colony resulting from extremly limited available forage in sept, when the queen stopped laying in both hives for a short while before I got to feed them. I think that there were too many older bees left which then came to the end of their life cycle, before the colony could be replenished with young bees. Hoping for a very mild spring!

 

[Millet]

Sadly my area has about an average summer temperature of 21oC... hopefully on inspection days it gets to the other side of average!

That's in the 70's fahrenheit (googled that word) lol , surely that's more than warm enough, my average summer temperature averages 17 c and the bees are buzzing with that, well last summer they where, but then again i knitted a little bee coat for each one for the colder days.

 

[Fusion_power]

When there is no rain for weeks on end and the July sun is blazing down, we often see temps above 40C for several weeks. The bees are fine so long as water is available. Hopefully the beekeeper was sharp enough to place the hives under an oak tree for shade. When winter comes, reverse extremes are possible. We have had temps as low as -30C though that is a once in 100 years freeze. In March 1993, we had a blizzard that dumped a foot or more of snow that lasted several weeks. This past winter has been exceptionally mild with no extreme temperatures and only a few days down to -10C. It is not over yet.

Today was exceptionally sunny and warm at 13C with light winds. By 2:00 pm, the bees were flying and hauling pollen in at a rate of 15 loaded bees per hive in 10 seconds.