Dead Hive

[Midland Beek]

Beek removes all the honey. Bees starve. Not rocket science.

 

[tonybloke]

Beek removes all the honey. Bees starve. Not rocket science.

that's good, 'cos we are beekeepers, not rocket scientists!

 

[MuswellMetro]

Sterve_e

think quite large areas of the SE have bees with very little stores been a drought of nectar since august in hertfordshire

 

[Heather]

If starvation -are not the bees usually dead with heads in the cells- not presenting as numbers too limited with a heap of dead bees locally.
I would suggest robbing and wasps??

 

[BKF Admin]

Sorry to read about this, we had a similar problem last December (2009) had the food too far away from the cluster. Really sorry to loose that hive and it was a shock (even though that night it went down to -7'c and the whole week was under -3'c. The previous week we had seen some flying and form the overwintering succesful ones... (day temp was +12 (which in January was odd then the following week all snow broke loose...)

Same thing happened to me with a hive two winters ago,loads of stores but the bees to cold to move across the frames.
It is a very sad sight to see so many heads stuck in cells yet food only inches away.

 

[beebreeder]

Steve
Could you collect a sample of the bees remaining preferably alive, freeze them,and PM Bee Crazy and ask him to check for Disease, specifically Nosema Cerane, just to be certain.
kev

 

[tkwinston4]

"3 I'll need to check back to see if there were bees with their heads into cells. There is a lot of capped brood left though (I'll check tomorrow to see how much). Yes, very inexperienced beekeeper so very likely I didn't notice something I should have done."

Don't beat yourself up about it too much will you. I lost a nuc this year too and its upsetting and makes you feel very guilty but in some ways its the only way us new beeks learn - by our mistakes. And i am sure even the experienced such as PH and oliver90 have made mistakes over the years

I was well gutted when I cleaned out my nuc, just try not to dwell on it too much will you

 

[Midland Beek]

Actually. Maybe it's mobile phone signals, an outbreak of some new disease or microwaves from orbiting satellites.

 

[steve_e]

Thanks for all the suggestions and replies (thanks tkwinston, I'm about half way through kicking myself once for each of the 40,000 bees I probably killed, so I'll follow your suggestion and stop!).

Following a PM suggestion (thanks Mike) I went back and had a look through the hive to see what condition the bees were in, which was interesting. First of all, there were a few bees with heads stuck in cells, but not huge numbers. The frames were completely empty, except for capped brood - no evidence of uncapped brood, so don't know if the few wasps that were still picking over the little that was left had eaten them?

But Mike's suggestion was to see whether the bees were whole or in bits, and to my surprise, looking at them closely, most did seem to be only partial, with heads, torsos, legs and wings detached. Here's a pic of the floor I'd put in to measure the mite drop where you might be able to see the bits that had dropped through the mesh floor:
http://www.foundation-stage.info/bees/DSC01546.JPG

Scooping up a jarful of dead bees from the bottom revealed that most were pretty badly hacked around. Don't know if the bees just got overwhelmed by the wasps initially, or I left them with inadequate stores and in a weakened state they were unable to defend the entrance.

Anyway, I went out and bought three of the maisemore jumbo rapid feeders for my other three hives which still seem to be doing fine (despite there being a LOT of wasps hanging around them). I don't want to see a repeat of yesterday's discovery if I can help it.

 

[Juststarting]

So Sorry to hear your news- scary how quickly things can change!

 

[mbc]

Possible but statistically unlikely.
The clues are all consistent with starvation - torpid bees, large number of dead bees, and no remaining stores. Bees with heads in cells would confirm it.

starvation brought on by robbing of their last stores while theyre hanging out the front or absonded somewhere near while their home stinks maybe

 

[clare p]

I have put 3 wasp traps on top of my hives, the cut plastic bottles with the spout inverted, with ribena in them and have caught 100s of wasps and a few hornets and a tiny handful of bees in them, they can not get out so they can not tell their mates where to come, It may encourage more wasps with the smell of the ribena, but I think that if I had not caught all those wasps they would be harrassing my bees!

 

[Dishmop]

I'm constantly amazed how fast they can empty a feeder, even when the weather is good and they are out foraging.

I have seen over 1 litre go in 90 minutes...

Pity we cant claim Child Benefit for each of them..

 

[Biddly]

I used this Apilife Var on two hives recently. After the first treatment both hives had bees gathering outside the entrance fairly soon and the bees in the first hive started to fight between themselves - about 20 dead bees. Both hives after 48 hours had thrown out at least one of the four pieces onto the landing board. Hive 1 had 3 pieces out in four days. After the second treatment, the first hives reaction was the same and the second hive had no reaction. I put in the third treatment in exactly the same manner and then went out for just over a hour , when i came back there were 100 or so dead bees on the floor from hive one and they had clustered - the size of a bunch of grapes on the top of the hive. at the entrance mass murder was taking place - they were fighting and killing each other and the body count was mounting up. I rang a few bee friends for advice as it was getting dark and it was a chilly night. To cut a long story short, i got a friend to come around early the next morning and we lifted the super up and i took away the Apilife Var pieces from the brood box. The bees that had clustered at the top of the hive were stil there but smaller as alot had died and there were about 1000+ dead bees on the floor - an awful sight. Within 12 hours and taking the Apilife Var out the hive was back to normal. The bees in this hive are usually very gentle and most time i don't need to smoke them when inspecting the hive and they have never stung me so this reaction to the treatment was very upsetting to see. If i had put the treatment in earlier in the day, say in the afternoon, i believe the body count would have been even worse and the bees may have absconded to get away from the thymol smell as they were hanging outside the entrance killing each other and clustered on the top of the hive. I am so sorry to hear of your loss.

 

[MrB]

Pity we cant claim Child Benefit for each of them..

HaHaHa

 

[kazmcc]

I used this Apilife Var on two hives recently. After the first treatment both hives had bees gathering outside the entrance fairly soon and the bees in the first hive started to fight between themselves - about 20 dead bees. Both hives after 48 hours had thrown out at least one of the four pieces onto the landing board. Hive 1 had 3 pieces out in four days. After the second treatment, the first hives reaction was the same and the second hive had no reaction. I put in the third treatment in exactly the same manner and then went out for just over a hour , when i came back there were 100 or so dead bees on the floor from hive one and they had clustered - the size of a bunch of grapes on the top of the hive. at the entrance mass murder was taking place - they were fighting and killing each other and the body count was mounting up. I rang a few bee friends for advice as it was getting dark and it was a chilly night. To cut a long story short, i got a friend to come around early the next morning and we lifted the super up and i took away the Apilife Var pieces from the brood box. The bees that had clustered at the top of the hive were stil there but smaller as alot had died and there were about 1000+ dead bees on the floor - an awful sight. Within 12 hours and taking the Apilife Var out the hive was back to normal. The bees in this hive are usually very gentle and most time i don't need to smoke them when inspecting the hive and they have never stung me so this reaction to the treatment was very upsetting to see. If i had put the treatment in earlier in the day, say in the afternoon, i believe the body count would have been even worse and the bees may have absconded to get away from the thymol smell as they were hanging outside the entrance killing each other and clustered on the top of the hive. I am so sorry to hear of your loss.

That is so distressing We are going to treat ours next week, and like your bees, they don't need smoking and no-one has been stung as yet. We have had our children in and one of the girls was quite clumsy as well, she let a frame drop from about an inch when placing it back in the super, and still the bees didn't stir. As we are new beeks we are learning what is safe for the kids to do and what isn't, so I think I will do the putting in and taking out ( or even the other way round lol ) but I am getting a bit anxious about treating. I remember our mentor telling us they didn't like it and he got stung badly once, and as the forums phobic bee keeper I have to say I'm getting a little nervous I really don't want anything to go wrong with these bees, they are perfect for us and as they are such a strong colony ( I think ) it would be awful if treating them knocked them back. Wish us luck and sorry to hear about your bees.

I have sent hivemaker a PM as he doesn't seem to have these problems with his special brew. I am going to suggest we use this recipe of his.

 

[RoseCottage]

Kaz,
We are in the middle of the treatment and I was concerned too. I read this post and recognised that I had done almost exactly the same set of actions.
So I went to see the girls and all is fine - no-one has left home, the treatment is still in place, there is no bloodbath, and our colonies are still completely calm and don't need smoking. We have just put on the 2nd week treatment and think that they are doing fine.

I have a half width block in place at the entrance and have put the varroa tray in under the OMF so that there is almost no gap between them. We do have a super on each hive and am making a small precautionary feed on one now (after I nicked a big chunk of a super from them).

Everything is cool - saw both queens, plenty of capped brood and larvae, and the girls have just discovered a very big flow of pollen. Typical - was the same in Mid September last year. Weather has helped too keeping above 15degrees most days.

I wouldn't worry about what to do - I would stick to your plan and treat soon.
This incident is very sad but not typical of the treatment results using the Apilife Var. Whether it is as effective as other treatments is open to debate but still if you monitor your colonies and have decided to treat better to get on with it.

All the best,
Sam.