Emergency queen survival?

[Beeconcerned]

I inspected my hives this afternoon. Although heavy, One was unexpectedly dead and empty of bees, so I brought it in to protect the honey from predators. At the end of a super frame (no excluder) I found about a dozen static and seemingly dead bees. I brushed these off, and found the queen was one of them. With nothing to lose, I put them in a plastic tub on a radiator. Most have revived and are active, the queen is very active. I have put in a few drops of water and honey.
The question is what to do now. Has anyone any ideas for a heroic rescue?

I have 2 other hives with good clusters which seem to be doing well.

Background. This queen was very prolific. This 'dead' hive was my strongest colony this year, and it was full of bees going in to winter. On the last inspection a couple of weeks ago on a mild day, it was active and there was pollen going in. There were a few dead pupae and dead workers below the hive and along the flight path, but nothing alarming. There were more today, but still not huge numbers, and no big pile on the floor. My hives were prepared for winter as 2 boxes with Celotex and fondant on top in case. There are full combs of sealed honey in the center of both the brood and super boxes, and alongside and above the the tiny frozen 'cluster' today. I am unable to find any obvious reason for the colony 'collapse' other than maybe clustering in an empty comb area during the cold weather, and I can't help feeling guilty.

Anyhow, any practical suggestions will be welcome.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Was this the hive you were feeding with marzipan?

 

[For want of a better word]

Seen similar with BB heavy with ivy honey stores.
My guess was the (Italian) queen had gone off lay and did not produce enough winter bees, and the seemingly thriving colony collapsed as the summer bees died off.
Was not too concerned at loosing their genetics!
Don't beet yourself up about it... we all get losses sometimes!


Had better add that other colonies of similar bees overwintered successfully.

Nos da

 

[colinc]

As there is no queen in the hive and she is their queen as soon as she was active I would have put her back. Like you said, nothing to lose as with out her and as they won’t rear and mate a queen at this time of year that’s what I would have done. In your situation.
However I wouldn’t be opening hives, why are you inspecting in December?

Sorry just re read. The hive has no bees. She is lost without attendants and I wouldn’t risk the other hives to steal frames of bees for her unless they are doing amazingly well

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

How often do you inspect your colonies in the dead of winter?

 

[Beeconcerned]

Was this the hive you were feeding with marzipan?

No. I didn't go ahead with that experiment. You have a good memory.

How often do you inspect your colonies in the dead of winter?

Sorry, inspect was a bad choice of word. By inspect I mean just that in dictionary terms, visiting and having a good look. I don't mean I opened up and went through the frames. I only cracked this hive open when I saw no activity and there was no response to knocking. So never, usually.

It seems such a shame to just squash a mated and vigorous queen who is obviously a survivor, (although icanhopit makes a good point) in her 2nd year.

She is currently on the table in front of me in a a plastic tub being fed and groomed by her few workers. If they are still alive in the morning I'm thinking along the lines of a micro nuc. I have a small heating pad and accurate temp controller here. I could make up a heated poly micro nuc out of Celotex to maybe house just a 1/4 frame or two with a few dozen workers from my other hives and nurse them through the winter. Is this a way forward, or am I being too sentimental?

 

[Hivemaker.]

No. I didn't go ahead with that experiment.

Was just going by this...someone also commented on the nuts containing Cyanide.

As a test I placed a small chunk of marzipan alongside a chunk of fondant the same size, and so far they have taken more of the marzipan.

She is currently on the table in front of me in a a plastic tub being fed and groomed by her few workers. I have a small heating pad and accurate temp controller here. Is making up a poly micro nuc, maybe Celotex and 1/4 frame, a way forward, or am I being sentimental?

Several hundred more bees are what's needed to keep her going, small colonies containing only a cupful of bees can be over wintered really easy under the right conditions.

 

[Wingy]

I'm sure many on here would say it's a lost cause and just let it go.
What I would do is as you sugges, small nuc, heating (as you have it) and feed. That way you have done all you can to help. Only concern would be why they had almost died out, disease?
I got a cast swarm late summer and lost the VQ. It was down to a cup full of bees when I re queened. I now have a strong nuc doing well.
Good luck and keep us updated
Wingy

 

[Eyeman]

Looks like you found an example of 'chill coma'. Any idea what the outside temp was? It's been said that workers drop off the cluster when their temp drops to <= 8'C. - yours were still holding on to the frame. Did the workers 'wake up' before the queen? - workers are said to have a lower chill coma temp than the queen.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Queens that have been chilled too much usually become infertile.

 

[Finman]

.
When varroa kills the hive, it is quite typical that there are only a cup full of bees and the Queen, and other bees have vanished. ... (But was it in this case a starving colony).

Varroa kills the winter brood, and when summer bees have died, the hive is empty. Lots of winter brood may emerge, but when they are violated, they live only one or two weeks.

More often varroa kills only half from cluster, and you have week colony in spring.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

It seems such a shame to just squash a mated and vigorous queen who is obviously a survivor, (although icanhopit makes a good point) in her 2nd year.

She is currently on the table in front of me in a a plastic tub being fed and groomed by her few workers. If they are still alive in the morning I'm thinking along the lines of a micro nuc. I have a small heating pad and accurate temp controller here. I could make up a heated poly micro nuc out of Celotex to maybe house just a 1/4 frame or two with a few dozen workers from my other hives and nurse them through the winter. Is this a way forward, or am I being too sentimental?

You have to think about why the colony dwindled in the first place - the obvious answer is 'dud queen' good chance she has run out of juice and and has stopped laying. The phrases 'lost cause' and 'cut your losses' come to mind.

 

[madasafish]

Concentrate on what you plan to do in 2018 rather than a lost cause...

"Time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted "

 

[drex]

The bees biggest enemy is the beekeeper. What do you hope to gain by regular inspections mid winter?
As above, learn from it and move on.

 

[Finman]

The bees biggest enemy is the beekeeper. What do you hope to gain by regular inspections mid winter?
As above, learn from it and move on.

If some body peep his hives in the middle of winter, what is going there, no need to hate him that for.

.

 

[drex]

I don't. Sorry if it came over that way.

 

[Beeconcerned]

Thanks for your replies.

Looks like you found an example of 'chill coma'. Any idea what the outside temp was? It's been said that workers drop off the cluster when their temp drops to <= 8'C. - yours were still holding on to the frame. Did the workers 'wake up' before the queen? - workers are said to have a lower chill coma temp than the queen.

The temperature was around 7 degrees. The 'cluster' was around a hole through the comb at the end of a frame. They were firmly anchored on the comb, and needed to be wiped off with a paint brush. On the table top they were all motionless, with no legs or antennae moving. If I had been outside I certainly would have left them for dead and walked away. Being inside, I put them on a radiator to see what would happen while I got on with other things, and all but one were moving when I looked again after about 10 minutes.
They are still active and feeding more than 24 hours later. I haven't squashed queenie, and this will definitely not be popular with my other half.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Torpor

 

[Beefriendly]

Torpor

You or this thread?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Torpor

Torpor,chill coma, doing the conga on the radiator or whatever - a teaspoonful of bees and a possibly dud queen is going to achieve the far side of f........
If you hadn't opened the hive they would have been dead within a few hours anyway.
Seems that everyone is now believing the ramblings of one beekeeper in Scotland who seems to have discovered, after all this time that bees go into a winter suspended animation.
We don't need PIR hive bonnets - just hive sized freezers we can pop all our colonies in for the winter - no need for feeding, worrying about isolation starvation, nosema or anything. Just wake them up in the spring and start again