Fatality

[Finman]

The spell of fine weather can precipitate an inevitable death by getting the queen laying and the old bees dying off quick when their hypopharangeal glands have to ramp up to feed the new larvae. Sometimes if they've no reserves in their bodies this can be the final straw for lots all at the same time causing catastrophic population crash leading to colony death in no time.

I have never met such thing, that phenomenon kills the colony.

When new bees emerge, old wintered bees start to forage and then old bees do not live many days.

Open the hive, and look, do they have any food in combs.

 

[evdama]

Thanks ,I will judicuiosly open it up on Wednesday,I was not in much state of Monday to do it Sunday.There was no activity as normal and I even poked a twig around the mouse guard but no life .

 

[blackcloud]

I had an aquaintance who used to visit Asia and import butterflies as a commercial enterprise.
He would often say that a warm spell in winter was more destructive than a wholly harsh one ,so it could have contributed.
If it wasn't natural causes I'm slightly hoping it was infestation or infection, because if it was a malicious act the I cannot risk starting over.

 

[blackcloud]

Ive got the use of an image sharing account so please try this

https://ibb.co/album/mrw8Jv

Notes I took today
Ten frames capacity box
The blackest was frame No 1 and I suspect it was a housewarming gift from the previous keeper.
Only the centre four frame sides were clustered
All the other frames were either drawn in a small spot or not at all.
Half the colony was on the frame the other was on the floor.
One side of a frame had some bees that didnt look as freshly dead as the others but none were looking like zombies from the Walking Dead show.
About 50 bees had their heads stuck down in cells.
Very little sealed cell and there was virtually no weight other than the wood of the box.This was the case when they arrived a month ago.
I noticed about half a dozen cells with eggs
An unmarked queen corpse and dead entourage was present.
One virtually unoccupied side had three corpses with a dot of yellowish pus like material on each.
I looked for what I think varroa look like from images ( Red or white upto 2mm) and could not see any on the bees or the tray-perhaps I cant see wood for trees)
I brought the floor and tray home to see as the wind really picked up.
They had eaten about 700g of fondant in 5 weeks.
I shoveled them up into my lunchbox for my stepson who wanted them for his Koi
They were in the car all day and when I got home about half a dozen otherwise healthy looking ones were slowly crawling up the side (which really pses me off)

If you could spare me the time guys I would be truly grateful of your input-at least then I will have learned something from this.

 

[Finman]

.
OK, now we know

I cannot see any food in frames.

"They had eaten about 700g of fondant in 5 weeks."

...... when the colony has brood, 700g in a week is too little. The colony should have 5 kg sugar (two full frames) all the time that accidents could not happen.

Reason to death is that there was no proper control the storage level, which should be normal procedure in beekeeping.

 

[Finman]

.....They didn't go into winter particularly strong having had only about ten deep frames to live on and almost zero stores when I rescued them.
....

zero winter stores

 

[blackcloud]

Ok thanks
So its as simple as that?
So what reason could they go in to winter with no stores and what could I have done better (bearing in mind they have only been with me since February and I was told to feed fondant and leave them alone)

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Ok thanks
So its as simple as that?
So what reason could they go in to winter with no stores and what could I have done better (bearing in mind they have only been with me since February and I was told to feed fondant and leave them alone)

Not knowing how they went into winter or how much they'd been fed, not much more you could have done, if they weren't coming up for the fondant (or not hoovering it up quicker) then it was out of your hands. looks like the warm spell got them up and running too early, couldn't get to food in the next cold snap.

As an aside, you wouldn't have needed a bailey to get them out of that box - they're off the shelf national frames.

 

[evdama]

Not knowing how they went into winter or how much they'd been fed, not much more you could have done, if they weren't coming up for the fondant (or not hoovering it up quicker) then it was out of your hands. looks like the warm spell got them up and running too early, couldn't get to food in the next cold snap.

As an aside, you wouldn't have needed a bailey to get them out of that box - they're off the shelf national frames.

Yes they're nice frames too so that's a slight gain - I was half expecting a real mess bracecombed every which way..

As you can probably tell I'm keen to put a positive on all this so Id appreciate if someone could tell me what the blobs of pus are-its one of the photos with a blade of grass pointing.
Also why are they dead with their heads in the cells.
They were foraging and chewing the fondant I have a previous shot with the block wrapper filled with feeding bees.
If I could have done no more then what could the previous guy have done earlier?
Could this have been a colony split done late or was it a swarm lured that for some reason didn't flourish.

 

[BeeSpace]

Looked at the photos last night but I think I remember seeing a couple of bees with pollen loads - I guess that might look like pus. Chewed brood cappings made me wonder about varroa load - I'm very new but thought I saw a varroa in one cell and some evidence of varroa droppings in some cells. But I could be wrong. Head down in cells is either searching for food or trying to generate heat to keep the brood / cluster warm.

With regards to what could / should have been done before you took them on; autumn (and maybe winter) varroa treatment, autumn feeding and I probably would have removed the undrawn frames and dummied down, with a bit of insulation over the crownboard for good measure.

But as I say, I'm new, so folks with much more experience will probably be a better guide!

PS - why the swapping between usernames?

 

[enrico]

This is so simple. They had not collected enough stores and they were not fed enough. They have been starved to death.
Any other extras on that would make no difference. If they have no food they will die with or without varroa etc.
Please delete one of your usernames too as it gets really confusing!
E

 

[Beefriendly]

Another possibility could relate to possible non treatment of the bees for varroa the previous autumn. In that the long lived winter bees where "sick" (varroa/virus etc) and their life spans considerably shortened.
There is quite a large brood area suggesting they kicked off okay....and with fondant present they shouldn't have starved to death (unless it was inaccessible). It's possible the winter bees died before the first new brood cycle was complete.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Another possibility could relate to possible non treatment of the bees for varroa the previous autumn. In that the long lived winter bees where "sick" (varroa/virus etc) and their life spans considerably shortened.
There is quite a large brood area suggesting they kicked off okay....and with fondant present they shouldn't have starved to death (unless it was inaccessible). It's possible the winter bees died before the first new brood cycle was complete.

the amount of dead bees doesn't really indicate a massive catastrophic death (starvation or poisoning) but rather a rapid dwindle, so some mortalities would have been taken away - when the cluster gets too small to keep itself warm you will see bees with heads in cells, not looking for food, but trying to keep warm.

 

[evdama]

Thanks I originally registered with one and couldn't get in,so reregistered.If I use my phone to post it defaults to the original.
What would the dummy frames be doing?
Any opinions on the 'pus'.

 

[BeeSpace]

I had a similar issue when I registered and ended up with two usernames - just ask Admin to delete whichever username you want to get rid of and they will.

The dummy boards just reduce the space the bees have to manage when there's either too few bees or too much space, depending on your point of view (you can put insulation behind the dummy in winter). Makes it easier for them to maintain temperature, keep robbers at bay etc.

 

[blackcloud]

So you would use a frame feeder in a spring nuc to adjust the brood space and feed syrup for growth?
The "fondant ,water and leave alone" advice I got was correct then?

 

[Ian123]

Bc not sure what advice you had and the water bit sounds odd. But the leave alone bit is subjective, we all leave them alone over the Winter to a degree but those on the ball check roofs are not blown off, hives are knocked over by kids or live stock and we should all check for stores. This is easily done by walking up behind and gently lifting to check the weight of hive. Whilst for those of us that have done it a few times and can judge its easy but you would not be the first newbee to ask what a heavy hive feels like. A friend of mine runs courses and stacks the inside of a hive with bricks, it at least gives new beeks an idea of what the weight should be and we can act accordingly

 

[Finman]

So you would use a frame feeder in a spring nuc to adjust the brood space and feed syrup for growth?
The "fondant ,water and leave alone" advice I got was correct then?

It does not help any more.

in future you will prepare your hives for winter normally. It needs several operations and then let the bees keep their winter rest.


I see that guys love to give small fondant packages all winter along. A colony consumes 2 kg sugar in a month. And it means that you are disturbing hives every month from autumn to summer. Just feed your hive with syrup in autumn.

 

[Finman]

...and with fondant present they shouldn't have starved to death .

But they did. They ate only 700 g in 5 weeks, and it is too little when the colony had quite much brood and temp must be kept high.

When the cluster shrinked smaller when they protected brood, they could not reach the fondant.

 

[blackcloud]

https://ibb.co/hK8H5Bn

They were feeding and foraging on the Wednesday,would the decline be so quick?