Lost my first ever colony today.

[jenkinsbrynmair]

well having 'a good check' doesn't sound like a quick crack open to lay some fondant on top.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I weighed all mine today. Inspection boards tell me where any clustered bees are and what they are doing. No need to look in. By all means put a layer of fondant on the top bars if you’re worried. No real problem if they don’t need it either but no need to be pulling frames out. It’s still winter.

 

[Murox]

The first day of spring is March 20th this year. and June 20, marks the start of summer.

 

[drdrday]

I weighed all mine today. Inspection boards tell me where any clustered bees are and what they are doing. No need to look in. By all means put a layer of fondant on the top bars if you’re worried. No real problem if they don’t need it either but no need to be pulling frames out. It’s still winter.

I weigh my hives every week or two throughout winter with luggage scales, weighing each side and adding them together to give me an approx. total weight. But having tested it out thoroughly on empty hives it's incredibly unreliable and VERY approximate. I also have inspection boards in, and on my most concerning hive I can see that they're both raising brood and uncapping stores, whilst the weight is starting to drop more rapidly - all of that tells me that they'll be using even more stores more rapidly over the next few weeks, particularly as it gets milder here.
I see no problem whatsoever for the bees in my cracking off the crown board and laying on some fondant when it's 15C and sunny - a no brainer for me, as opposed to leaving them until the start of spring and doing nothing.
For me a 'good check' of stores is actually laying eyes over the top of the frames and reassuring myself that I can still see stores available for them.
Monitoring the weight and inspection board only take you so far, and if they're indicating to me that the bees are getting a bit too low for comfort then I'm not the sort of bee keeper that's just going to leave them to get on with it just because it's not yet officially spring.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I weigh my hives every week or two throughout winter with luggage scales, weighing each side and adding them together to give me an approx. total weight. But having tested it out thoroughly on empty hives it's incredibly unreliable and VERY approximate. I also have inspection boards in, and on my most concerning hive I can see that they're both raising brood and uncapping stores, whilst the weight is starting to drop more rapidly - all of that tells me that they'll be using even more stores more rapidly over the next few weeks, particularly as it gets milder here.
I see no problem whatsoever for the bees in my cracking off the crown board and laying on some fondant when it's 15C and sunny - a no brainer for me, as opposed to leaving them until the start of spring and doing nothing.
For me a 'good check' of stores is actually laying eyes over the top of the frames and reassuring myself that I can still see stores available for them.
Monitoring the weight and inspection board only take you so far, and if they're indicating to me that the bees are getting a bit too low for comfort then I'm not the sort of bee keeper that's just going to leave them to get on with it just because it's not yet officially spring.

Yes. I said put fondant on the top bars
If you can’t see any stores peering into the top and the cluster is isolated to one side then the best thing to do is to give them a frame of stores right next to the bees, even if it’s freezing.

 

[Curly green finger's]

I weigh my hives every week or two throughout winter with luggage scales, weighing each side and adding them together to give me an approx. total weight. But having tested it out thoroughly on empty hives it's incredibly unreliable and VERY approximate. I also have inspection boards in, and on my most concerning hive I can see that they're both raising brood and uncapping stores, whilst the weight is starting to drop more rapidly - all of that tells me that they'll be using even more stores more rapidly over the next few weeks, particularly as it gets milder here.
I see no problem whatsoever for the bees in my cracking off the crown board and laying on some fondant when it's 15C and sunny - a no brainer for me, as opposed to leaving them until the start of spring and doing nothing.
For me a 'good check' of stores is actually laying eyes over the top of the frames and reassuring myself that I can still see stores available for them.
Monitoring the weight and inspection board only take you so far, and if they're indicating to me that the bees are getting a bit too low for comfort then I'm not the sort of bee keeper that's just going to leave them to get on with it just because it's not yet officially spring.

Well we have gone round feeding any colony that hefts lightish, even cracked the crown board on some just to make sure they are near stores.
One of our double brood has been reduced to one box, they haven't ventured into the top box all winter.
I think any beek should look if they're concerned, yes it's winter but colonys are getting bigger already.
No real harm done.

 

[gmonag]

The first day of spring is March 20th this year. and June 20, marks the start of summer.

March 20th is the equinox, June 20 the summer solstice. They are not the beginning of seasons.

 

[Curly green finger's]

March 20th is the equinox, June 20 the summer solstice. They are not the beginning of seasons.

You could say they are both tied together.

 

[Newbeeneil]

I'm not talking about a full on inspection, but just lifting the crown board and laying on some fondant if necessary. Surely that's a 'surefire' way of avoiding starvation on a hive that I think are getting a little too light, when leaving them for a month would be way too late.

I hefted the rest of my hives today, found two that were a bit on the light side. I opened one to find 9 frames of bees and very little stores. If I'd left them to next week I'm pretty sure I would have lost them. I slapped on some thin strips of fondant directly on the frames for the mean time but I'm going back to check again next week.

 

[Swn58]

Starvation.
Big colony I only gave them fondant 7 days ago obviously not enough.
We've watched them flying since then to.
Gutted!

It's a worry this year. Cold weather.....then really freezing......then warm....then back to freezing. I have had many bees flying one day, then within 24 hours it's minus 5 degrees centigrade. It catches colonies out. It's not your fault and I doubt that there is anything you could have done.
I checked the farm hives a week ago. They were still heavy, which was lucky, as I thought it too cold to do more than inspect the trays. There was signs of activity on the trays.
The allotment bees were fine as well. Three colonies had added fondant, more as insurance than anything else.
I'm hoping next week will be warm enough to give them all a good looking over!

 

[Swn58]

I hefted the rest of my hives today, found two that were a bit on the light side. I opened one to find 9 frames of bees and very little stores. If I'd left them to next week in pretty sure I would have lost them. I slapped on some thin strips of fondant directly on the frames for the mean time but I'm going back to check again next week.

Yes.....sometimes you have to take the chance, or lose them.

 

[Curly green finger's]

I hefted the rest of my hives today, found two that were a bit on the light side. I opened one to find 9 frames of bees and very little stores. If I'd left them to next week in pretty sure I would have lost them. I slapped on some thin strips of fondant directly on the frames for the mean time but I'm going back to check again next week.

Good call, I wonder if they should be left for a week even.
Im wondering what's the best way to deal with a dead out.
I've only brushed the bees of the frames but the ones in the frames.

 

[pargyle]

One of our double brood has been reduced to one box, they haven't ventured into the top box all winter.
I think any beek should look if they're concerned, yes it's winter but colonys are getting bigger already.
No real harm done.

It's very odd that your bees have not been in the top of a double brood ? Normally I would expect them to be in the warmest part of the hive ... IE: the top part ? What makes you think they have not been in the top box ?

I don't think colonies are getting significantly bigger in February ... even in the barmy South down here the best they are doing is maintaining the winter numbers ... I haven't looked in recently but past fiddling (in my early beekeeping years) showed that build up didn't really start until temperatures were pretty steady in double figures ... and once they get to a consistent 12 degrees it becomes pretty explosive. But - it's not just about temperature - it's also dictated by the available forage - principally the ready availablity of pollen. Mine start when the early fruit trees blossom - plums are about the first to blossom where I am.

I sometime worry when people tell me they are stimulative feeding syrup very early in the year ... if there is insufficient pollen available there are risks that this will actually be counter productive. As in all things beekeeping it is all about assessing what is going on in the environment in which you keep bees and reacting accordingly ~ the weather is a part of this consideration .. but not in isolation.

Opening a hive at this time of the year 'just in case' is a fools game and can lead to all sorts of problems - it will stress the colony and stressed colonies do not fare well. You break the propolis seal and force them to work on tasks when they should not need to. If you can't or are unable to heft to estimate the stores level then you have to weigh ...

The oniy concern at this time of the season is do they have sufficient stores and if you are organised from the end of last season you should know this without having to drag frames out and look.

 

[user 819]

I checked three today, of particular concern were two full colonies that were plagued by wasps in the Autumn and into early Dec. Both clustered centrally around stores and hefted with good weight, the third a 6f nuc had an ice cream tub with 1.5kg fondant placed over the feed hole. Still away to go yet but signs look promising for all three.

 

[Curly green finger's]

It's very odd that your bees have not been in the top of a double brood ? Normally I would expect them to be in the warmest part of the hive ... IE: the top part ? What makes you think they have not been in the top box ?

I don't think colonies are getting significantly bigger in February ... even in the barmy South down here the best they are doing is maintaining the winter numbers ... I haven't looked in recently but past fiddling (in my early beekeeping years) showed that build up didn't really start until temperatures were pretty steady in double figures ... and once they get to a consistent 12 degrees it becomes pretty explosive. But - it's not just about temperature - it's also dictated by the available forage - principally the ready availablity of pollen. Mine start when the early fruit trees blossom - plums are about the first to blossom where I am.

I sometime worry when people tell me they are stimulative feeding syrup very early in the year ... if there is insufficient pollen available there are risks that this will actually be counter productive. As in all things beekeeping it is all about assessing what is going on in the environment in which you keep bees and reacting accordingly ~ the weather is a part of this consideration .. but not in isolation.

Opening a hive at this time of the year 'just in case' is a fools game and can lead to all sorts of problems - it will stress the colony and stressed colonies do not fare well. You break the propolis seal and force them to work on tasks when they should not need to. If you can't or are unable to heft to estimate the stores level then you have to weigh ...

The oniy concern at this time of the season is do they have sufficient stores and if you are organised from the end of last season you should know this without having to drag frames out and look.

Morning philip I can't explain why the colony have been in the bottom box all winter there is no barrier for them to cross,
When I removed the top box there was only three bees in it and the colony were covering 5/6 seams of bee's in the bottom.
In the autumn they were covering 7 in both.
It was the best thing to do removing the top box.

Looking at our records this colony did much the same last winter. They supersede in August to.
They also end up on double brood with out fail and are one of our biggest Amm colonys.

As to winter prep they were very light going into winter they were fed 16kgs of fondant.

My thoughts are they would benefit from being housed in a bigger hive type but then condensed into one for winter.

They were to big in the autumn to condence into one nats brood box.

 

[Malcolm Stamp]

It’s so sad when a colony is lost but I think beekeepers beat themselves up over it unnecessarily. A hive that I keep an eye on for a new beekeeper succumbed over the cold spell. It had been a good swarm with a virgin queen in the summer and had copious amounts of feed going into the Autumn, all the brood frames were drawn out and honey stored. I thought the hive was light in January so fondant was put on.
so why did they die out? I think the queen was just not prolific enough, maybe her ovaries weren’t up to par or she was the bee equivalent of a runt. With insufficient eggs laid in the Autumn months the die was cast and the over wintering bees fell below a critical mass beyond which they couldn’t keep warm. On examination the bees still had stores, some open where they were clustered so no starvation but their numbers were diminished. Perhaps without that vicious cold spell they might have made it. Oh well I know where my first spare queen is going.

 

[The Poot]

Morning philip I can't explain why the colony have been in the bottom box all winter there is no barrier for them to cross,
When I removed the top box there was only three bees in it and the colony were covering 5/6 seams of bee's in the bottom.
In the autumn they were covering 7 in both.
It was the best thing to do removing the top box.

Looking at our records this colony did much the same last winter. They supersede in August to.
They also end up on double brood with out fail and are one of our biggest Amm colonys.

As to winter prep they were very light going into winter they were fed 16kgs of fondant.

My thoughts are they would benefit from being housed in a bigger hive type but then condensed into one for winter.

They were to big in the autumn to condence into one nats brood box.

Hi Curly,
I‘m a bit confused by this.
If you fed that much fondant it would have been stored in the upper box wouldn’t it?
So if you found that box empty, they probably moved down from it during the Winter as they consumed the food, thus ending in the lower box?
To my way of thinking, it seems they were thus in the lower box when the cold weather hit and I reckon the combination of lack of food and the cold did them in.
Perhaps they just didn’t get enough food in the Autumn if you only fed fondant? I did the same on a couple and am a little concerned if mine will get through this next all important phase, when brooding really gets underway.
All four of mine are small clusters - only covering three frames halfway across the frames - see attached for an example.
Was your colony Italian by any chance?

 

[Boston Bees]

It's very odd that your bees have not been in the top of a double brood ? Normally I would expect them to be in the warmest part of the hive ... IE: the top part ? What makes you think they have not been in the top box ?

If the top box is full of stores, the natural place for a cluster would be below those stores, thus mostly in the bottom box, no? Thus allowing them to eat their way up the combs as winter goes on? Assuming the hive is well insulated, anyway. If there is a problem with hive insulation they I can see that they might have no choice but to get to the top as soon as possible.

I have colonies doing both - some are permanently at the top, some are lurking below their stores and hardly visible through the perspex. Who knows what makes them decide ....

I would have left them the top box stores until winter was over myself - seems an odd time to be removing food, just as they will need it most - but I am sure either approach is fine.

 

[Murox]

If the top box is full of stores, the natural place for a cluster would be below those stores, thus mostly in the bottom box, no? Thus allowing them to eat their way up the combs as winter goes on? Assuming the hive is well insulated, anyway. If there is a problem with hive insulation they I can see that they might have no choice but to get to the top as soon as possible.
I have colonies doing both - some are permanently at the top, some are lurking below their stores and hardly visible through the perspex. Who knows what makes them decide ....
I would have left them the top box stores until winter was over myself - seems an odd time to be removing food, just as they will need it most - but I am sure either approach is fine.

I would favour that approach as well, might have added more insulation as well ~ depending ~.

 

[Ian123]

I often find bees moving sideways over winter particularly in the case of a nice warm hive wall. Bees often take advantage of the sunny side and additional heat.