Subject: Six super winter!?

From: [email-masked] (David J Trickett)
Date: 30 Jan 1995 13:38:45 GMT

According to the books, you can get a "chimney effect" (with regard to
heat loss) if you have too many supers on a hive.  A few years ago I had a
similar situation, except that it had come about not with hive mortality
but with an exceptionally strong fall honeyflow.  I just left the extra
supers on the hive.  The only drawback I noted was that the bottoms of one
of the supers ended up with a few wax moth larvae.  My theory is that even
though the hive was a strong one, some moths got in and layed their eggs
there, and because the supers were the lowest of the set (i.e., they were
right on top of the hive bodies) there were a few rows of open cells which
had been used for brood rearing.  Second, because these supers were
already filled and capped with honey, the bees didn't really pay much
attention to them, except to walk by them on the way to the supers they
were fiilling above...  I've never seen any wax moth larvae in any of my
other combs, and only noticed these when I got araound to extracting that
June.

I didn't extract that extra honey the prior fall because my equipment is 
in the basement and it would just have been too difficult in a cool/cold 
room (due to the greater viscuity of the honey).  Maybe you can use these 
extra's to feed some splits this spring....

-- Dave Trickett

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From: [email-masked] (Durk Ellison)
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 02:44:02 GMT

Hi Jordan,

17-Feb-95 04:55, Jordan Schwartz: wrote to All:
        Subject: Re: Six super winter!?

>> It would be interesting if you could give a more detailed account
>> of what you saw when you opened and inspected the dead hive.

>> Bees killed by Varroa, AFB and EFB are rather easy to detect.
>> AFB and EFB by the smell and Varroa by searching the debris.

 JS> The first thing I noticed upon opening the hives was virtually
 JS> unmistakable lack of bees.  This was my first tip that the hive was
 JS> dead.  There was no scent (which would have indicated foulbrood), nor
 JS> were the dead larval bees (of which there were few) ropey.  Instead,
they
 JS>
 JS> appeared normal, just not moving.  In fact, it appeared that a handful
of
 JS>
 JS> bees were emerging from their cells when they died (i.e. they were half
 JS> out, half in, fully developed).
  JS> Jordan L.K. Schwartz       !  University of Washington
 JS> [email-masked]      !  Department of Psychology
 JS> http://weber.u.washington.edu/~jlks/jordan.html

 This sounds very much like what happened to me last winter. My hives
  (8 of them) where in a forrest about 10 meters from an old dirt road.
  What I didn't know is that the owner of the land had contracted to
  have the older trees cut down and sold. With the noise of the motor
  saws and the ground vibrations from the lumber trucks using the old
  road. This induced a very stressful situation which brought on
  nosema. Each hive, when opened, was as you have described.

  I also have been brought to understand that Apis woodi infection
  will cause the same situation. I had my dead bees checked for woodi
  and they where found clean.

��Ŀ
   ����> Best regards from, Durk Ellison

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 * Origin: Durk Ellison        BeeNet     Finland (240:2358/100)

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From: [email-masked] (Durk Ellison)
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 03:33:16 GMT

Hi Jordan,

 JS> There were heavy stores of honey (thus the start of this thread: what do
 JS> I do with it, since I don't have an extractor, and its not worth my
while
 JS>
 JS> to extract only two supers worth), so they didn't starve.

  Sorry I forgot to answer your question (It's 03:00 here). Once I
  determined the cause, I used the honey stores from the dead hives
  to feed to the hives that where strong but a bit short on food.

��Ŀ

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