Lost a hive

[VEG]

Well I have lost one of the association hives the cause starvation. I am totally gutted. I checked them about 2-3 weeks ago they were flying then and seemed to have enough stores.
Check your hives everyone.

 

[bobandbec]

Sorry to hear about your loss.
Mine are still consuming fondant at the moment. Weather today still too cold for flying and little or nothing out to collect from anyway.

Peter

 

[jezd]

Veg, sometimes there is little you can do for some colonies if its too cold and they are small, you can place a slab of fondant on top but if its too cold for them to move they will starve sadly.

I collected to hives of dead bees a week ago and both had full supers of honey, bees just could not move to them - supers each supplied 10lb of honey since.

JD

 

[Bcrazy]

VEG
Its a gut wrenching feeling when bees die of starvation. Sorry to hear about the loss.

REGARDS;

 

[Finman]

Spring deaths are common because brooding consumes surprisingly much winter stores.

I lost 1 of 30. It has brood during winter and the hive was full of poo.
A twist size ball of bees are alive but perhaps they die before cleansing flight.
First I was afraid that it might be Nosema cerana or what ever.

We have sill winter here. Bees have not made cleansing flight. At least I have brood in many hives allready even if bees have been under snow and just now it is -15C.

Greetings again to Poly Hive. You are right. We have different climate here.

Snow cover 70 cm, day temp -5C and at night -15C.

I look one hive why it has no winter cluster. It had capped brood quite much and some bees emerged. So they have started brooding when temp has been -20C. But it is quite warm under snow.

So I must forget the idea of second trickling after cleasansing flight.

***********

In many places of beekeeping area last night temps has been - 28C.

.

 

[rolande]

Hi Veg,

Little consolation that it is; a good friend of mine (a game keeper) warned me when I first started out on a large scale that "Where there's livestock there's dead stock". None of us like to loose bees but sometimes as the others have said, it's just not avoidable.

I myself have had an odd experience this year as it's the first time that I've ever had more colonies come through than I went into winter with....not STRICTLY true, I admit, but basically I had two nucs which had failed miserably to produce anything other than drone layers -in a perfect world they'd have have been liquidated last August but due to things out of my control they endded up being left in the yard to be moved away this year but they both now posses solid slabs of brood and are flying/collecting pollen well.

Best Wishes,
Roland

 

[mbc]

Well I have lost one of the association hives the cause starvation. I am totally gutted. I checked them about 2-3 weeks ago they were flying then and seemed to have enough stores.
Check your hives everyone.

Take it on the chin and console yourself that your helping Darwin and his selection theory

 

[Heather]

Checked mine again today- 6 ignored the syrup I offered, 2 have cleaned it out-
All out on the crocus -lovely to see- but Veg - I lost one too - small colony and I reckon late q failure last year and I missed it.
Look on the positive side- a nice extra hive to grab a prime swarm into!!

 

[VEG]

Thanks for the replies.
The other 3 hives were checked today and one was queenless, could be down to us moving them last week so that has now been united.
So out of 4 hives we are down to 2 strong hives with plenty of stores.