new house, dead bees

[daknoodle]

Its been awhile since I posted last on here, so here is my story:

About 2 1/2 years ago my now wife's grandfather decided to give me all of his bee equipment. That included two active hives and alot of extra woodenware. I took down both hives as they were mostly africanized and I did not have a place to set them up at at the time.

Fast forward to the present, my wife and I bought our first house this last week (yea, we got the mortgage despite the financial mess our nation is in) and after 2+ years of storage we put the empty hives out in the back yard until I have a change to work on them. They did have comb in them but it was all extracted.

Today, I got home from work and noticed a lot of bees in my "empty" hives, so I figured either a) some "robbing" was happening from a local hive or two or b) a feral colony moved in. So I've decided to let them sit for a few days to see if they are just cleaning them out and maybe I'll end up with some clean boxes.

Well after going out to eat for the evening and spending time with my wife I decided to go check on the bees and see if they in fact moved in or not. To my horror there are dead bees all over the place around the boxes and some injured bees that are limping around on the verge of dying.

I don't want to be the one who just killed a hive or two in the area. Any suggestions on what would have killed bees in only a few short hours? The hives have not been touched with any pesticides to my knowledge and have been stored in my garage for the past 2+ years.

Any thoughts would be welcome.

Thanks,

Doug

[riverrat]

sounds like robbing

[daknoodle]

Sure, but I'm more worried about the whole dead bees issue. Is this something I need to destroy the boxes over, or what?

[dragonfly]

Wow, that's a weird one. So you don't know at this point if a swarm moved into your hives, or if something was in the hives that killed the bees on contact. What were you storing the supers and frames in and/or with. Any chance that they were contaminated by some kind of pesticide or other chemicals? Did they have a strange odor of any kind? Were they empty frames that were drawn, or undrawn foundation? I guess I may have missed that in your post. If you check the bees tomorrow and find that it indicates a swarm moved in (by the presence of the queen and drones), then it's possible that they managed to be exposed to pesticides sometime in the past 1-2 days. If it was robbers just looking for free food, then I would guess there is something wrong with either the woodenware, the frames, or both.

[justin]

i believe riverrat was saying that the dead and wounded bees sounds like the rusult of bees robbing.the lid got knocked off my old feed bucket 2 days ago,the bucket was empty but there must have been alot of residual sugar in there.my garage looked busier than my hives.i checked the bucket that evening and it was full of dead and dying honeybees,yellowjackets and hornets.ibelieve they start fighting when they start robbing.i would not be worried about chemicals.

[riverrat]

Sure, but I'm more worried about the whole dead bees issue. Is this something I need to destroy the boxes over, or what?

I wouldnt worry about the dead bee issue other than trying to stop it. Bee's will fight when robbing. Only thing you need to do is wait until spring and get your bees into the box

[daknoodle]

I looked this morning, no bees coming in or out, though it was rather cold. I tapped the boxes with my foot and no noise or anything, so I'm assuming it was all just robbing.

If it were just fighting then good, I can be okay with that. I'm considering building an all new hive anyways for the spring, so I might not even use these boxes in the end. anyone in Texas need some deeps? :-)

[xC0000005]

Bees will kill each other during a nectar drought quite happily in my experience. Sounds like nothing more than a few bees tearing each other to pieces over some table scraps. Certainly not anything to do with the hive or comb, I'd think.

[daknoodle]

ROFL, that was absolutely hilarious!!

Though the current hive they are going through has a deep and three medium boxes on it, so I don't get the opportunity to see the inner workings of the fight, now I'm tempted to take it all apart and pull out the frames and let them have at the rest of what is left. I did notice that there are some left overs of the dreaded wax moth, will that hurt anything?

Doug

[daknoodle]

Okay, maybe it isn't exactly a problem as I'm getting free bees now, but it looks like I now have two swarms planted in my yard.

Basically I opened up the boxes that were being robbed and pulled out all the frames and arranged them in such a way that it would be easier for the bees to get to. My thought was that this would allow them to clean everything up quicker.

Now today, I have a swam planted on the side of one of my trees, I did find a queen in the cluster and I have a second cluster in the grass which I also found a queen in.

I have places an empty deep with bottom board next to the cluster on the grass. No sure what to do about the cluster on the side of the tree though. Hopefully I'll get the cluster on the grass to go into the hive and I'll have my first colony. Luckily for me, Texas weather gives us very mild winters and I should have a good chance of survival.

Doug

[xC0000005]

Look at it this way - free bees are almost never bad.
Catch that swarm. The cluster on the side of the tree - if you can find the queen, put her in the box. They'll follow her. If you are uncomfortable putting her in the hive, put her in a small "bug cage" and the others will follow. If you can't find her You could hang a frame up against the cluster and leave it there. When it's covered in bees (and it will be) put it in the box and see if they move.

[daknoodle]

The cluster from the grass moved right in, the cluster on the tree seems to be gone now.

A couple questions:
1. I'd like to eventually move them to another part of the yard, how do I do that? Is it okay to just move it, or is there anything to consider?

2. I'm assuming I should start feeding them, any thoughts on how and with what?


Thanks,

Doug

[Hambone]

Move them right at dusk. How far are you moving them?

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmoving.htm

Start feeding 2:1 Dissolve 2 cups of sugar into 1 cup of water. Thats the ratio. If you don't have a feeder use a baggie. Call Dadant in Paris and order a hive top feeder.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfeeding.htm

If you order a feeder from Dadant. Get an entrance reducer too. You might want to keep the entrance small until they get established.

[daknoodle]

I need to move them about 50 or so feet.

[daknoodle]

I didn't do so hot on the bag of sugar water and the bag basically dumped a bunch of sugar water down inside the hive and out the entrance. How bad is this?

[riverrat]

they will clean it up. Get you a glass jar with 3 or 4 small holes in the lid and invert it over the hole in the inner cover. this makes for a better feederr

[Hambone]

I didn't do so hot on the bag of sugar water and the bag basically dumped a bunch of sugar water down inside the hive and out the entrance. How bad is this?

I didn't do so hot on my first couple of baggies either. Only fill a gallon zip lock a little under 3/4 full with syurp. Do not burp the bag leave as much air in there as possible. Then lay down and make a couple of slits.

That being said. RR is right. That makes for a much better way to feed.

Granted it way raining today. But, how does everything seem to be going.

[daknoodle]

I remembered that my wife's grandfather gave me a feeder that goes on the outside of the hive. Had to run over to the store to get more sugar, but go that filled up and placed on the hive last night.

With the rain and all yesterday there was little to no activity so I'll take a look again today. I'm trying not to open the hive for a while to try to give them a chance to get things going. But I must admit, it is very tempting. :-)

To be honest, I was not expecting to have bees until the spring, but this is certainly a great learning experience.

Over the next few weeks I'm going to be building a long hive with frames. Its a design I've talked about with others on here a year or two back (you can find the discussion by doing a search for my username). I'm debating on either shaking this hive out onto it, or simply buying a package. I guess it will on depend on how well they overwinter. Luckily though our winters are extremely mild.

I'd love to know if there are any other beeks in or around Arlington that I could sit and talk with.

[daknoodle]

Oh, one other thing. I'm starting to have a little bit of an ant problem. Any suggestions?

[Hambone]

Be careful with the front feeders. They tend to cause robbing. Keep your eyes out for that.

If this hive over winters good. And come out spring strong. I would be best to leave them as they are in there. And start with a package in spring in the new equipment.

With the ants. People say sprinkling cinnamon, grits. Works good. I do it. Seems to work.

My new set up. I am placing 2 cinder blocks up on each side with metal tubing between to set my hives on. Then I am going to put a barrier of Crisco or Vasline to keep the ants away.