Hi, I'm very new to beekeeping, I collected my first nuc last Spring and enjoyed a wonderful summer of watching my colony grow and tasting some of the best honey - EVER! I have just gone through my first winter season - unsuccessfully.![Crying :cry: :cry:](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
I haven't done a bee course yet, COVID put pay to that, so I've been learning online as much as I can. I'd treated Bella (Buckfast) and the girls for varroa mite in the autumn. I left a super and the brood box with honey to help them through their first winter. I added insulation into the roof and fed them candy in early Jan just in case. I had noticed that if the temp was above 10 degrees C a few bees were popping out to see the world, then recently it all went quiet. I've just been out to see how they are and they've all died.
They hadn't touched the candy, there was plenty of honey still left in the super and the extremities of the brood box, but not where the swarm was. All black and empty there, bums sticking out of the comb.
So, a couple of questions if anyone can help? Can you spot anything obvious I did wrong? Can you point me in the direction of a blog / guide for what to do with all the frames - how much do I clean them etc. Do I start again, with another nuc? Sad, but hoping to start again, just keen to learn from my mistakes and I don't know what they are yet.
Thanks
I haven't done a bee course yet, COVID put pay to that, so I've been learning online as much as I can. I'd treated Bella (Buckfast) and the girls for varroa mite in the autumn. I left a super and the brood box with honey to help them through their first winter. I added insulation into the roof and fed them candy in early Jan just in case. I had noticed that if the temp was above 10 degrees C a few bees were popping out to see the world, then recently it all went quiet. I've just been out to see how they are and they've all died.
They hadn't touched the candy, there was plenty of honey still left in the super and the extremities of the brood box, but not where the swarm was. All black and empty there, bums sticking out of the comb.
So, a couple of questions if anyone can help? Can you spot anything obvious I did wrong? Can you point me in the direction of a blog / guide for what to do with all the frames - how much do I clean them etc. Do I start again, with another nuc? Sad, but hoping to start again, just keen to learn from my mistakes and I don't know what they are yet.
Thanks