Dead Bees outside the hive?

[markylaird]

Is this normal?

seems to be a good few crawling around and few dead ones. Got them from a five frame nuc i bought. My first bees

 

[Poly Hive]

In a word yes.

They are dying off constantly and if the weather is a bit adverse then they dinna quite make it home and so.... you see the results.

PH

 

[huntsman666]

You don't say when this happened. If it was just after installing them in a full size hive then I wouldn't worry.

 

[markylaird]

Just over the last 2 weeks with the wet weather

 

[EdNewman]

Was the picture taken in the morning? There are always a good handful of dead bees on the patio around my hives in the morning, but by the end of the day the hives have tidied them away nicely, I put is down to bees dying tidily during the night. My mentor was surprised to start with the thought that as his hives where sounded by grass he wouldn't be able to tell if it was normal or not and that I shouldn't worry.

Ed.

 

[huntsman666]

Perhaps the supplier of your nuc put an extra amount of older field bees in what you received and these are now dying off.

I everything else looks fine with the girls bringing in a nice steady amount of pollen I wouldn't worry yet.

If it was spray poisoning I would expect a lot more to be dead.

Hopefully the numbers of dead drops off somewhat but you will always have some. Don't forget your queen should be laying over 1000 eggs a day and their life while busy, is short. Many die out in the fields never getting home but some do before they succumb.

 

[enrico]

Look for the tell tale signs of long strands of poo on the front of the hive, the roof and the ground where the dead bees are. I reckon you may have a good dose of nosema in there
E

 

[Pezza]

Hi markylaird,

Just a quick question is there enough food in the Hive?

Pezza

 

[Headnavigator]

Hire a young family of blackbirds - our latest fledglings spend all their time by the hives gobbling bees - live and dead.

 

[Poly Hive]

That is some diagnosis Enrico from a distance.

There has been no mention of faeces. Just dead and dying bees.

I suggest some time that on a visible surface, in my instance it was a silage pit, that the number of corpses is observed. It is frankly scary. But utterly normal.

PH

 

[huntsman666]

Dead bees outside the hive can be indicative of Nosema but I wouldn't suspect that unless there is also heavy soiling on the hive face over the entrance.

You can check by doing a field test on the most recent dead bees.

Field test: Grasp the sting and last segment with a tweezers. Pully gently but firmly out of the bee. Lay on a piece of white paper or similar. In a healthy specimen, the midgut should be tan coloured and wrinkled. Can only be confirmed by laboratory tests.

 

[milkermel]

as someone else said make sure there is plenty of stores

 

[markylaird]

have neopoll around 500g in their also a rapid feeder with 1 liter of syrup on inspection not much stores but they are definitely taking the food down.

no signs of any poo what so ever and bees seem very busy rain or shine except the day we had the 90mph winds.

they have drawn out 5 more frames so far and their is plenty eggs larve and also seen the queen.

i might clear the bees away tmrw and count how many are their the next day

thanks for all the advice

 

[Busy Bee]

If it was my nuc I would feed them half gallon of thymol syrup mix strong as it will be a while before you will be supering. This could potentally go some way in helping the nosema if you have it, thymol syrup in my opinion gives the bees a lift and you should see them looking shinny and really busy next morning after feeding. It will do them no harm at all.

Busy Bee