Subject: WHy did my bees die this winter?

From: [email-masked] ()
Date: 15 Apr 94 15:26:36 GMT

This is my first hive.  Things seemed to be ok.  I had the varora mite
strips in there and put on menthol in the fall for tracheal mites.  The
-23 F lows concerned me, but two days after that i put my ear to the hive and
heard a lot of buzzing.  We had another cold snap but i could still hear
the buzzing, but this time could see a lot of dead beed that were thrown
out by their live brethern.  I checked a week later and all were dead.
I opened the hive to find several full combs of capped honey in places yet
all were dead.  The thing that seemed wierd was many of them were dead
right on the comb with their heads inside the cells. Many more were on 
the baseboard.
 They were not any funny looking color, they looked like bees do whern alive,
 so i guess that rules out chalkbrood and foulbrood.  Some were so intact
looking sitting on the combs that if i photographed them it would appear that
i had photographed live bees.  Know what I mean? 

I tried to find the queen but could not, though its very possible i
overlooked her. Does the fact that bees were found (dead) in several places in 
the hive might mean she died and they were scattered? Any clues as to what
 happened? I had not given them any antibiotics, is that a mistake?

I fed them all summer and took no honey since i wanted them to be strong
for the next year.  It is a big disappointment. Hope someone can help
me figure what i did wrong.

Many thanks
Allen

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From: [email-masked] (Maarten M Mulder)
Date: 16 Apr 1994 06:17:40 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] () writes:
|> This is my first hive.  Things seemed to be ok.  I had the varora mite
|> strips in there and put on menthol in the fall for tracheal mites.  The
|> -23 F lows concerned me, but two days after that i put my ear to the hive and
|> heard a lot of buzzing.  We had another cold snap but i could still hear
|> the buzzing, but this time could see a lot of dead beed that were thrown
|> out by their live brethern.  I checked a week later and all were dead.
|> I opened the hive to find several full combs of capped honey in places yet
|> all were dead.  The thing that seemed wierd was many of them were dead
|> right on the comb with their heads inside the cells. Many more were on 
|> the baseboard.
|>  They were not any funny looking color, they looked like bees do whern alive,
|>  so i guess that rules out chalkbrood and foulbrood.  Some were so intact
|> looking sitting on the combs that if i photographed them it would appear that
|> i had photographed live bees.  Know what I mean? 
|> 
|> I tried to find the queen but could not, though its very possible i
|> overlooked her. Does the fact that bees were found (dead) in several places in 
|> the hive might mean she died and they were scattered? Any clues as to what
|>  happened? I had not given them any antibiotics, is that a mistake?
|> 
|> I fed them all summer and took no honey since i wanted them to be strong
|> for the next year.  It is a big disappointment. Hope someone can help
|> me figure what i did wrong.
|> 
|> Many thanks
|> Allen
|> 
|> 

I don't know if this is relative, but last summer (September I think) my father treated his hives (2) on the advice of the Mass. State Bee Inspector.  I think he used menthol.  The hives promptly swarmed, the swarms disappeared, and he was left with weakened hives, neither of which made it through the winter.  It was unfortunate, since these were both docile hives that produced a lot of honey.  Oh well.

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From: [email-masked] (Michael Moroney)
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 1994 01:05:57 GMT

> out by their live brethern.  I checked a week later and all were dead.

I too am an amateur (2 hives, last year was my first year with bees), but
I've studied a fair amount.  Most hives that die in the winter die within
sight of spring.  Supposedly the reason is they're raising brood (did you see
any brood?) and they have to keep it warm, so they need more food and also
can't (won't) move away from the brood to find it.  So they starve within
inches of food.

> right on the comb with their heads inside the cells. Many more were on 

I believe dead bees head-in in cells is a sign they starved.  See above
I guess.

>  happened? I had not given them any antibiotics, is that a mistake?

Maybe they scattered in search of food and a cold snap prevented them
from reuniting.  In one of my hives there was a small dead cluster separate
from the main cluster (which survived).

> me figure what i did wrong.

They should have had plenty of food.  I can only guess they got separated
from it.  Were the bees all away from the remaining honey?

My hives were each one hive body and a honey super.  We had one day in Feb or
early March that was warm enough so I could open the hives to see how they were
doing.  (I know I'm supposed to leave them alone)  Both hives the bees had
moved "upstairs" into the honey super and pretty much abandoned the hive body,
even though the lower 2/3s of the hive body was still mostly full of honey and
pollen.  The honey super was almost out of honey.  So I moved the empty frames
in the hive body to the outsides and reversed the boxes (honey super with bees
on the bottom), so the bees instinct to move up in the winter will cause them
to run into food. Both hives survived.  One is building up really well and
already has lots of bees even though when I opened them I worried if there was
enough bees to survive (it had almost 2 inches of dead bees on the bottom board
- yech!)

-Mike

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From: [email-masked] (Michael Moroney)
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 1994 01:46:14 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, Maarten M Mulder wrote:
> I don't know if this is relative, but last summer (September I think) my
> father treated his hives (2) on the advice of the Mass. State Bee Inspector. 
> I think he used menthol.  The hives promptly swarmed, the swarms disappeared,
> and he was left with weak

(you may want to add returns once in a while.  Your reply was one long
line and my editor lost the end of the line)

If you have 2 weak hives at the end of the season it's best to combine
them into one stronger hive.  Better to lose one nice hive than both.
I had 2 hives and at the end of the season one was weak and the other was
very strong.  I felt it was strong enough so I transferred bees from the
strong hive to the weak.  Both survived.

-Mike