dead bees

[david.d]

Hi I went to my hives this morning and there are 2 or 300 dead bees outside the hives ( I have 2 ) the bees left inside however seem to be fine any ideas on the cause

 

[taff..]

winter.

as the temp has just risen, the bees have been clearing out the dead.

all is normal, calm down

 

[MuswellMetro]

Yep ,agree Winter

up to 50 bees die a day in winter, and they have been in cluster and it has problalby been to cold for the undertaker bees to clear out the dead until the last few days

 

[Michael 365]

A happy new year to everyone!

I noticed exactly the same thing with my hives; looks like the girls have taken advantage of a slight rise in temprature to do a bit of tidying up. A quick peek under the roof, to check out the fondant blocks shows that the colony appears quite strong and active inside the hive, or at least the little bit that I could see.

They do seem to be working on the fondant blocks; I'll need to keep an eye on those.

Regards, Michael

 

[Heather]

Hives vary so much in behaviour.
I have one that has been clearing out +, 6 that are very dormant (very little dead debris) and another one flying as though it was mid summer...But all alive (so far) so I'm happy

 

[Vergilius]

There have been a lot of posts about this recently...

If colonies overwinter about 15000 bees would you not expect a reasonably large number of dead...

In summer the dead are flown out and dumped a distance away but, in winter, because it is too cold for undertaking flights, they are dumped straight in front of the hive.

Ben P

 

[psafloyd]

Hi I went to my hives this morning and there are 2 or 300 dead bees outside the hives ( I have 2 ) the bees left inside however seem to be fine any ideas on the cause

Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!

 

[darren64]

do mouse guards hinder them when removing dead bees?

 

[Silly Bee]

do mouse guards hinder them when removing dead bees?

Simply. Yes.


No dead bees outside the hive is probably more cause for concern.

 

[Finman]

It depends too, where the cluster is. If it is near bottom, they clean at once the bottom. But if it cluster is up, it just drop down dead bees from frames.

Most of bees fly out to die in bushes.

.

 

[Eyeman]

Is it just my imagination that there always seems alot more dead bees in front of the hive 1 week after oxalic acid treatment
May be due to my timing of the OA treatment towards the end of a cold snap.
Alec

 

[MJBee]

I haven't found that but I treated when it was +5C then next day it turned cold again. It's due to warm up again tomorrow so they will be clearing the hives, if there is an unusual number of casualties I'll let you know.