Dead Bees

[Scottsman]

I have spent hours reading old post and searching for answers on this forum. I found several post that related to SHB and V. Destructor as the cause, even wax moth but nothing exactly like this. I have an 8 frame hive, SBB,one deep, one medium, one shallow, top cover, screen cover over that, telescoping cover with 1/4" spacers. Mite boards are in place, lower entrance reduced to 3 1/2". Nothing coming in and probably going to feed soon if we don't get a rain. I walked down to the yard Sunday and found around 50 to 100 dead bees on the ground in front of one of the hives. I pulled the greased up mite board and it was clean of mites, not one. Same of sister hives.I always have from 3 to 10 beetles that the bees keep hemmed up on the inner cover. Nothing major. The dead bees were partially devoured by the swarm of Yellow Jackets scavenging their carcasses. I found several that had not been eaten on and they appeared in great condition, no deformities in the wings, just looked frozen in place. The only thing I can't see are possibly Tracheal mites but no one round here has had a problem with them to a large extent. Oh yea, no chemicals, very little sugar syrup ever, small cell foundation in all hives. Tried most of the commercially available beetle traps and the CD Cases and Plastic sign traps with 0 (goose egg) and ain't caught a SHB yet.

[KelpticFest]

Maybe they needed feeding sooner?

[Solomon Parker]

Are you concerned about a hundred dead bees? In a healthy hive, more than a thousand will die each day.

Tell me what you think about this: http://parkerfarms.biz/images/dead%20bees.jpg

It could be execution of attempted robbers. Robbing can be especially bad this time of year.

[Scottsman]

Just starting out, had not seen anything like it before, thought I'd ask. The hive is strong with plenty of honey, I was gonna feed some because I read somewhere on here it encourages comb building and with all new foundation I need frames of comb for splits in the spring. If my plans work out.