View Full Version : how long to starve bees
brent.roberts
06-27-2006, 08:52 PM
I recently had about 20 bees taken from a hive and put into a JZBZ shipping container and set on a window sill without much more than a smear of sugar candy in the bottom of the queen cage sockets. After about 18 hours they started to die off.
Would they starve or dehydrate that fast ?
Alienor
06-28-2006, 01:09 AM
Bees live from liquid nectar.
So they need some water for dilution of candy.
But the main reason may be the absence of a queen.
Without the pheromones of her bees the workers fall into despair. To be alive without a queen and no chance to get in a hive with a queen is the biggest desaster what can happen to a bee.
Michael Bush
06-28-2006, 05:49 AM
Are they in the sun? I would have expected them to last a little longer. But water is essential.
brent.roberts
06-28-2006, 06:26 AM
Thanks for the comments
They were not in the sun. It was overcast and raining here. These gals were left sitting on the
washroom window sill where I've been trying to figure out what was killing the bees that were released onto the wood frame and glass. They survived from 8:00PM Monday night till 8:00AM Tuesday morning when I went to work. My wife reported they started failing early in the afternoon and I was trying to figure out if they stressed out, starved or dehydrated OR eventually succumbed to whatever killed all the other that were released onto the glass.
The JZBZ queen shipping cages do not have caps on the candy end so when they go into the shipping box that holds maybe 15 individual cages, some of the candy transferers into the sockets, and they could get at that bit during the night and morning. It is all gone now. I did put some of the queen marking glue into the cage. Sounds inconclusive what happened to them
Try one box with glue, one without...mist a little water on the screen every 8 hours or so.
bees will live a long time even without a queen as long as they have feed. I had some bees that were queenless perhaps 200 of them that lived in my bee vac inner box for about three weeks. I fed them every other day. Some times sugar water, sometimes honey. It was an experiment. Now just so you know they could leave the inner box if they wanted to because the bottom was open and so was the hole where the vacum hose goes. I finally mixed them with another hive at another location, because they were content where they were. Even saw a few bringing back pollen a few times. Thought that was neat. They were trying their best to be self sufficient albeit my every other day feedings. And no they had no comb built and no queen.