winter bees in the making

[meidel]

I think one of my colonies has finally decided they're making preparations for winter. I haven't inspected them and don't plan to since beginning of September. But a week ago I removed the apiguard super and brought the crown board down to just above the top bars, left the ambrosia on in the 4 pt rapid feeder over the feeder hole and insulated on top and closed up. This morning when I went down to the apiary I saw a lot of dead larval bodies outside the hive and on the landing board.

I guess the bees must be making room for winter storage now!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Did you check stores when you took apiguard off?
Have they eaten your ambrosia?
Could they be chucking out brood because they are starving?

 

[meidel]

could be starvation ... when they had the apiguard on, they had a super size eke and didnt' touch a single drop of the ambrosia but they'd been really busy bringing in pollen and nectar - infact with the ivy around they\d been behaving much like a summer flow. It's true that the weather changed for the wetter over last week, but I just assumed that the dead larval bodies was a sign of them having enough of feeding larvae ... I shall have a look to see if they've touched the ambrosia - because it had been on the crown board for so long, I tasted it and it still tasted alright ... so assumed it was ok

 

[meidel]

they've eatern half the amount of syrup - so over the last 8 or so days, 2 pts, but as it's really sunny and around 14C today they're all going in and out like it's a flow on - i suppose there is an ivy flow as far as they're concerned and they prefer that. There was one solitary bee in the feeder!

 

[itma]

... I haven't inspected them and don't plan to since beginning of September. ... This morning when I went down to the apiary I saw a lot of dead larval bodies outside the hive and on the landing board.

I guess the bees must be making room for winter storage now!

Rather than guessing, you'd be much better to do a proper inspection.
No reason not to with the nice weather this weekend.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Have a look in

 

[drstitson]

larvae being jettisoned sounds more like winter bees being aborted to me.

 

[meidel]

hmm yet I'm still confident the bees know best - they were very busy today and previously. I've lost my newbie curiosity to look into the hive at every sunny moment. What could I do if they choose not to eat the syrup? I could offer fondant I suppose .... they all prefer fondant to syrup I've found in my limited experience of beekeeping.