Subject: Re: A dead one

From: [email-masked] (Pollinator)
Date: 6 Apr 1995 22:19:39 -0400

[email-masked] (-verville d.f.) says:
>>Hive #1 wintered, Hive #2 died.
Upon open #2, I did not see any dead brood, in fact there where
no bees at all!  The brood chamber had queen cells, none of which looked
as though they were ever used. The upper box still had capped frames.
(Not robbed out, yet)

>>uh??

>>I followed the same same as above on my other hives and they wintered.

No brood indicates queen failure.  She may have been killed by hive
manipulations last fall, old age, or whatever.  If she stops laying during
winter, the bees cannot replace her.  They may even raise one, but there
aren't any drones.

It's not unusual.  A certain percentage of winter loss is queen failure.

It is important to do a post mortem on all dead hives in spring.  Those
which did not die of foulbrood can be reused with a package, a nuc, or a
swarm.

[email-masked]                               Dave Green
PO Box 1215, Hemingway, SC   29554

Any thoughts?

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From: [email-masked] (-verville d.f.)
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 1995 14:46:38 GMT

The tale of two hives.
I caught two swarms from the same parent hive last year.
The swarms were within one week of each other.
Both were hived on foundation and both grew well during the summer.
Both had the upper brood boxes packed full for the winter. (New England)
Crisco patties and Apistan strips were put into both hives, 
two strips each and directly into the brood area. Later removed as directed.
(I left the crisco patties in the hive.)
Last time I saw them both alive was during Thanksgiving weekend.
Hive #1 wintered, Hive #2 died.
Upon open #2, I did not see any dead brood, in fact there where
no bees at all!  The brood chamber had queen cells, none of which looked
as though they were ever used. The upper box still had capped frames.
(Not robbed out, yet)

uh??

Any thoughts?

---

From: [email-masked] (Aaron Morris)
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 95 08:52:13 EDT

In article <[email-masked]>
[email-masked] (-verville d.f.) writes:
 
>...
>...
 
Seems like something happened to the queen in hive #2 late in the fall.
A possible scenario: The bees attempted to raise a new queen (queen
cells present) but were not successful.  Hence the hive died off.
Absence of bees is curious though.  Their absence would be indicative
of mite infestation.  Perhaps the infestation was more than the
medications could handle.  Of course this is merely speculation.
 
Aaron Morris