March 26, 2013
I lost another hive. This time it was Harry. I don't understand what happened. There were thousands of dead bees in the hive. There was a little brood (workers and drones), some honey and some pollen. I didn't see any sign of foulbrood, hive beetles, or Varoa. I noticed that they did drink some of the sugar water I gave them in the division board feeder. But I also found some new queen cells, though none opened. Does this mean the old queen perished or left? I doubt she left because of the quantity of bees still in the hive. A quantity equal to what I would expect to carry over the winter into the new spring. So she might have died. But how, and why?!? This situation really curtails my hopes for this year's honey season.
However there are a couple of opportunities here;
1) I have a new box full of fully drawn comb with honey to give one or more new hives a nice start. This might help us harvest more honey this year with the new colonies because they won't need to draw out all new comb and they will have some stores to start out with. There just won't be any production from the established hive that didn't make it through winter.
2) I have a learning opportunity with the South Central Honey Producers of Kansas meeting this coming Saturday afternoon. There will be a lot of veteran beekeepers attending from whom I might learn something about this situation.
Have you seen this?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youris.com/Environment/Bees/Bees_restored_to_health_in_Italy_after_this_springs_neonicotinoidfree_maize_sowing.kl