Dead Bees from a Package

[Coldwater]

While I'm posting...

I installed a package into a friends Warre hive 2 weeks agoNot hugely impressed with the amount of bees in the package in the and (just over 3lb). I have been feeding them hard and they have drawn out a reasonable amount of comb so far. After installing I noticed quite a few dead bees had been dropped out in front of the hive and so after a week I cleaned them up. Over the next week more dead bees appeared and there are about a hundred on the ground outside the hive as well as about 5 half dead ones at any one time.

Is this normal for a package? They are definitely more dopey and slow than my other hive next door where the bees are single funded foraging machines....

 

[Polyanwood]

Sluggish bees can be hungry bees. Have you tested them for Nosema? Nosema makes it hard for the colony to forage successfully.

 

[MuswellMetro]

if they are feeding mainly on the syrup in the hive then it could bee you are just seeing the normal losses of bees that would normally die away from the hive while foraging

have you a total non intervention protocol on the warre hive or can you look at the brood

 

[Coldwater]

Interesting, but I suppose that makes sense about bees not dying away from the hive. I could ave a look at the brood, I'm more looking at minimising intervention on these than totally non-intervention. Will look, many thanks.

 

[DanBee]

Agree with MM, but to add:

Smallish colony, lots of feed... other colonies are "foraging machines"...

Have you reduced the entrance on the package colony to discourage robbing?

 

[Swarm]

Have you reduced the entrance on the package colony to discourage robbing?

 

[Coldwater]

The warre hive has a pretty small entrance anyway but I will reduce it down some more as you suggest. The syrup is going down pretty slowly, they take about a pint per day. Many thanks

 

[BILL.HEARD]

I you look at the way some packages are produced which is to give you three pounds of bees via a hopper then you could possibly have a larger percentage of older bees in your package, hence the number of deaths.