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Sad day in the bee yard.
Checked my bees and found that they did not make it through the winter. Both hives. I knew that they were light going into the winter even with feeding. It seems that they were separated from their food source.
Now, what is the best way to clean them up and prepare the equipment for introduction of new package bees in the spring.
I'm assuming that starvation was the cause of death not disease. I just remove as many bees as possible but don't go overboard. I will check frames and equipment for replacement and scrape off the bottom board. The bees do an amazing job cleaning up the hive. If you decide to clean up the hive when its cold, be cautious, the wax is extremely brittle.
I clean up the hive as soon as I can after I determine they are dead. If they are left the hive really start to stink. Don't worry about the bees that are head first in the cells. When you place these combs in a new hive the bees will clean everything up. I also close up the entrances when I store the supers, so mice don't get in.
If the hives is staying outside be sure wax moths can't get in either once it warms up.
sorry to hear about your bees morgan. do your best to figure out what happened, chalk it up to learning, and try to avoid it next time around. the drawn comb and honey will get this year's bees off to a good start. if your temps are below freezing up there don't worry. if it warms up before you get your bees, try to keep the frames in a freezer, or at least take measures to keep the wax moths and hive beetles out of them.
I just scrape off the burr comb and propolise chunks from the frames and put them in a plastic bag as a precaution. This year I have left my unused equipment outside to see how it fares. I don't know if that is right to do in your area or not.
Scrape the bottom board , and install new bees.
Crazy Roland
Just out of curiosity:
Were these 1st year hives?
Were they started from Nucleus or Packages?
I close mine up and wait for spring to clean up when I make my spring splits. No danger of wax moths until June here. Freezing kills nosema and helps keep virus down IMO.Quote:
Originally Posted by Acebird