my theory on winter casualties

[enrico]

I see there are a few comments about the unusual amount of winter casualties this year. I think we have forgotten how cold November was. My theory is that when we use Varoa control it throws the hive out of sink (Or is it sinc). The queen stops laying. Then we remove the control and the queen goes into full production again so we have older bees and younger bees and nothing in between. Then the cold weather comes along and in a normal Autumn the older bees would die and be removed but this year the winter hit us hard and early, the bees that would normally have been removed were left on the bottom of the hive. My bees went in in November and didn't come out till February, this is the longest winter spell I can remember in my 30 years of beekeeping. Not surprisingly the drop of bees accumulated and they never really caught up with house keeping!! So now when we are opening our hives there are more than the usual amount of dead bees. I would suggest that this is normal 'drop' that you would not usually notice but that the weather has made things seem a little unusual. Things will right themselves eventually. that's my theory anyway!!! (I do appreciate that this isn't the case in ALL hives and that some will have other reasons... only talking generally!)
Comments?

 

[oliver90owner]

Enrico,

November was OK...ish. It was December that was ccccold!

You may be right for those colonies brooding late into the autumn. The rest of our bees (the more sensible ones, aclimatised to the UK weather patterns), should have replaced the old bees with young over-wintering bees before the ccccold December fell upon us (and them).

So it may be a simple case of wrong strains of bee. Might not, as well, of course! I was just offering another possible alternative; there may be more theories coming later.

Regards, RAB

 

[Poly Hive]

TBH canna say I have noticed anyone making comments about unusual losses.

Unless it is newbies a bit taken aback at some bods on the floors. Time is a great teacher though.

PH

 

[Heather]

sinc

I agree- we are seeing loads of dead bees on the floor of the hive- but in an otherwise healthy hive. And it has been too cold for housekeeping. We ladies don't work well in the cold- cuddle up with a book to read.
Clean out the dead- helps the hive ventilate and hygiene - move on...

 

[chipper]

My bees have overwintered with only 2 losses (2 weak Nucs).
Thats less than 2% of my total.
I have NEVER achieved such low winter losses before.
However, I am finding some colonies with large amounts of corpses on the floor boards, they just dont seem to have bothered to clear them out unlike others where they are in front of the hive.
Cold during the winter is not an enemy of a well fed colony.
The oxalic acid treatment should have been particularly effective this winter.

 

[grizzly]

I havent seen that this year, but then its the first time i have not treated with OA.

 

[tonybloke]

i haven't looked!

 

[Crg]

I see there are a few comments about the unusual amount of winter casualties this year. I think we have forgotten how cold November was.
Comments?

In November in London my bees are normally still working, so I normally only treat end of December for varroa.

 

[SixFooter]

Are we sure it's not sync

 

[richardbees]

Yes, I'd have thought it's normally 'sync'

Crg

What Va treatment were you giving in late December? I'm also London and wouldn't dream of opening them up then....

rich

 

[Chris B]

Are we sure it's not sync

Quite right.

My losses will end up between 10 and 15 % (although it depends if "autumn losses" are included i.e. where I united/shook out weaker colonies - is there a standard for when you actually start counting?).

Anyway, my losses have been gradually improving over the last 5 years, which I think matches the general trend if BBKA figures are accurate. My figures are also skewed slightly as I usually make up autumn nucs and I'm probably losing 25% or more of them. I don't think the cold was a major factor, although I did have 2 classic cases of isolation starvation.