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2012 Dieback Already?

105K views 327 replies 52 participants last post by  JRG13 
#1 ·
I have heard from a beekeeper here in NY that he has been hearing of and seeing dieback in his outfit and others across the Nation, many different parts and in parts of Canada. How about y'all? Seen or heard something similar? What's going on? What are your observations or conversations about this like?

Is it mites? One guy I corresponded w/ thinks it has to do w/ the mild Winter (11/12) which was not only easy on the bees but the mites too, allowing an earlier buildup in the colonies.

Thanks for your input.
 
#110 ·
This does seem to be one of those years that bees want to die. I saw results as described. A couple locations would be good, then the next would be almost a complete loss. Before any bees died I sent samples to BVS in Montana for virus and nosema tests. None or very low on both counts. It's all about what my bees got exposed to. Lots of Sunflower and other crops they spray. My bees were basically all the same going out of TX into the Dakotas. All Nucs with cells and a mite treatment.

It comes and it goes. Some years are better than others. Sometimes the bees survive the amount of stress they are exposed to and sometimes they don't. It's part of life where I live.
 
#113 ·
blue tubs of protien sub on Facebook. .
Where?

Mark, I'm just not saying this, I mean it. With all due repect to those losing bees, all of my costumers that I keep in close contact with are fine. My phone has been ringing off the hook with beekeepers in panic about losing bees. It's very difficult to turn them around now, it's too late.
 
#114 ·
Hi Keith

Thanks for proving my point. I have fed and do feed piles of pollen sub starting as early as August 15-20. This year I got my hands on 12 tubs of your stuff. Nice stuff, but it can't save the walking dead. If the bees were in a bad spot, I was scraping your stuff off dead hives instead of Mann Lake's.

There are big differences in what bees are exposed to even within one county, say nothing about a state as big as ND. I have a lot of bees that are as good as you could ever hope for right now. It wasn't how soon I got the mite treatment, the last 3 yards treated look great. It's not virus or nosema, both tested negative and I treat Fumidal in the spring. And it wasn't the pollen sub, Mann Lake, brand X, or Jarrett Wonder Juice. The bees are Great or Died regardless.

As a rule, bees that CAN'T see sunflowers and canola from the bee yard do better than the bees that are up close and personal with the crops.
 
#116 ·
Can we look back and see when and how things changed from a time when our bees got enuf of what they needed from the environment and now when we seem to need to feed protien patties and corn syrup or our bees will die? Is it the demands of what we want to do w/ our bees that has changed? Or what?
 
#117 ·
Ryan: interesting incites. Most everything I've seen this fall is explainable. The best bees were in areas where there was a late summer flow and the worst was where not much was going on. The earlier mite treated yards were generally better as well.
 
#118 ·
I've seen this on and off for 10-15 years. And I don't mean the mite damage from the 80s. I'm talking about late 90s when we all basically understood how and when to do basic mite control. I use lots of new comb for brood boxes. Not that mine is perfect, but I'm not running any old black brood comb.

Some years all my bees look great, other years not so much. Good management and feed inputs help, no question. Sometimes it's not enough.
 
#119 ·
Hi Jim

I'm not at all surprised. I hope that I don't sound shocked about some dead hives. The funny is that some years the bees survive all the stress thrown at them and some times they don't. One step behind the line and they all live. One step farther and they quit. I'd just love to know where the line is. Maybe I could get a really good crop where I'm at and still have great bees for CA. I'd love to have my cake and eat it too!!!
 
#121 ·
Hi Keith
I'll send you my contact info. My apologies for any confrontational tone. I'm just trying to describe that sometimes bees get into the combination of wrong stresses. I've pushed lots of late summer and fall pollen sub. AND IT HELPS. Pollen sub is one of my constants, not a variable. But the results still vary year to year, region to region, and yard by yard. I'd love to know what one thing makes the difference for my bees.

As I said, it was "nice stuff". I had a positive experience with the product.
 
#123 · (Edited)
Late this year, sept 10-15 on the second go around for mite checks and treatment. Perhaps some could have been saved if it had gone on with the first mite treatment. Of course that would have slowed down the speed of treating the hive for mites. There is a give and take that has to be balanced.

The good yards are fine. The bad yards we returned to find full feeders, uneaten sub, very reduced populations by sept 25 - Oct 2. No more losses since then. The bees that survived the September hit look really really really good now.

I had a great crop, plenty of bees left to split and raise queens. I'd sign up for a year like this every year. I'm doing great. Great! I just wanted to share some results about dead bees. This is a business success story that involves me making money by killing my bees while I was going after a honey crop. I will do the exact same thing next year. I'm a happy camper.

I hope someone can gain from my story.

Not at all an ugly story for the feed or pollen providers. It is nice pollen sub. Those bees were just too far gone too early in the season. We just can't tell if they are sick or not when we are out feeding and treating.
 
#124 ·
Hey

Speed is key for getting the job done on time. I buy assembled and painted boxes. Assembled frames. I hire all my trucking. I fly between states when I go to work. I buy sugar liquified. I buy my queen cage candy tubes pre filled. I buy my yard rent pre packaged. I bought a forklift trailer that ties down with the flip of one lever.

How about selling me some pollen sub already in patty form?????? That shovel I had to use was not really my style.

Ha. That's funny I don't care who you are.

I'm sorry that was a low blow.

Off topic and everything
 
#126 ·
Hey

Speed is key for getting the job done on time. I buy assembled and painted boxes. Assembled frames. I hire all my trucking. I fly between states when I go to work. I buy sugar liquified. I buy my queen cage candy tubes pre filled. I buy my yard rent pre packaged. I bought a forklift trailer that ties down with the flip of one lever.
Do what you are good at and pay for the rest. An economics instructor told me that that is a good way to make money.
 
#127 ·
I mostly agree with Ryan. We build a lot of frames and boxes in the off season partly because we have the time and partly because I had a bad experience with poorly assembled frames from a bee supply house.. But most of the year my rule is beekeepers need to be beekeepers and hire professionals to do the other stuff.
 
#130 ·
Don't expect to find out much about the "recipe" though. It's a lot like Coca Cola or the colonels secret blend of herbs and spices. Just buy it and don't try to figure it out.
 
#138 ·
Keith: You need to repost the video of how you do it complete with your custom made wagon. A video is worth a thousand posts. On second thought maybe you don't need to encourage even more orders.:digging: I love that icon.
 
#141 ·
Well, this has gone way off topic. Par for the course I guess.

At 5-7lbs/hive, you spend all day to pollen sub 167 hives. 2 "chicken squares" go on really fast while we are in the yard pulling honey.

The bees do go through that amount very fast. And we have to make an additional trip back to each yard a week or so later. But I have lots of time and extra labor to go back to those hives and add more sub after the honey pulling is done.

Sometimes I want to be fast and wasteful. My crop comes in at least a week or 2 later than the other Ryan. I'm usually in a tighter time pinch than most guys.

I'll accept your last post as a polite No Thank You, can't mess with it right now or maybe ever. But I had to ask. I can still use some of your stuff for my second round of pollen. Thanks again.

ryan
 
#142 · (Edited)
At 5-7lbs/hive, you spend all day to pollen sub 167 hives. ryan
There's an ole boy up by Tonys that use our sub he throughs 5-7 pounders on the bottom boards (tip hive foward), he can run thru 2000lbs of sub a day on cruise control. He does this with triples on he says feed the sub before you pull the last super.

To each it own.:) That's why there's good bees & no bees.
 
#145 ·
SQKCRK asked:

Can we look back and see when and how things changed from a time when our bees got enuf of what they needed from the environment and now when we seem to need to feed protien patties and corn syrup or our bees will die?


I can not pinpoint the time when the change occurred, but I believe it was not sudden , but rather a slow transition over a decade, maybe 1995 to 2005???? I blame the weather that is effecting the plants. Years ago you saw a field of flowers and assumed rightly the bees would make honey. Now, not so much. We have had the craziest STRONG honey flows in the last 5 years, Wild Cheery trees about 4 springs ago, Red Maple this march, and an unknown dark honey in early June(chicory????).

Something is wrong with the plants, and is is affecting our bees adversely.

Crazy Roland
 
#148 ·
I blame the weather that is effecting the plants. Years ago you saw a field of flowers and assumed rightly the bees would make honey. Now, not so much. Something is wrong with the plants, and is is affecting our bees adversely.

Crazy Roland
I blame our queens. All beekeepers want to talk about is varroa resistant, SMR, VHS, Hygenic, etc....
Not me.
I want good bees. Productive and gentle bees and I will take care of the mites.
Many of us are worried that queen producers are selecting ONLY for mite issues and ignoring all of the traits we have selected for over the years.
The queens I raise are grafted from the most gentle and productive hives.
Productive and gentle bees are what I attempt to purchase as well but sometimes I wonder.
It is the beekeeping community that is pressuring our queen producers to select for mite issues. I don't blame the producers; they are just listening to the misguided customer.
 
#146 ·
I don't get it. Weather affects plants and creates strong honey flows, I understand. I also understand that something could be wrong with plants. I'm not sure if you were saying that plants are being affected by the weather and ultimately this was creating strong honeyflows. How can that be adverse for the bees, unless you do not give them room soon enough to take advantage of this flow.

Jean-Marc
 
#147 ·
Keith
Do you think the reason you need so much pollen on your bee's is because there is none for them in CA.

or for example should i be using your protein substitute even if there is enough nature pollen.
what we need to know is if the bees are better off with a sub par substitute than they would be with our contaminated natural pollen.
has nature become so contaminated we are better off feeding them?????

Just remember we need to figure out the real problem, not just put duck tape on it.
 
#149 ·
Keith
Do you think the reason you need so much pollen on your bee's is because there is none for them in CA.
with our contaminated natural pollen.
Just remember we need to figure out the real problem, not just put duck tape on it.
Ben, I run bees in your state of TX also ND & NV, it's not all calif. Why do you feel your natural pollen is contaminated ? First let me say most of natural pollen is better than my sub, but many times (most) in the late summer-fall they need a boost to spur brood production to get lots of young fresh bees for winter.
 
#150 ·
there's no arguing with success keith.

but it seems counter-intuitive that one would want to ramp up brood rearing in the fall, when the bees are in the process of decreasing their population for overwintering.

is there any risk of encouraging too much brooding, resulting in too many bees, which would eat through the winter stores too quickly?
 
#151 · (Edited)
but it seems counter-intuitive that one would want to ramp up brood rearing in the fall, when the bees are in the process of decreasing their population for overwintering.

is there any risk of encouraging too much brooding, resulting in too many bees, which would eat through the winter stores too quickly?
SP, yes, you do need to watch weight going into winter, But let me ask you this SP, have you ever heard a keeper in jan or Feb say, " dang these cluster are just too dang big for this time of year" ?? lol

P.S. there is a reason why we have a huge package market here in Calif.
 
#152 ·
not sure, is the reason that california doesn't have much of a natural fall flow, and those with pollinating contracts get paid by the frame of bees?

never heard of anyone complaining about cluster size, only that their bees starved before the spring blooms arrived.

barring having big hives early for pollination, there may be an optimal cluster size for overwintering. i haven't fed mine this year, and they are smaller and lighter than when i fed them last fall. i guess i won't know until spring.

thanks for your reply.
 
#154 ·
the reason that california doesn't have much of a natural fall flow,.
SP, it's not so much that Calif doesn't have a fall pollen flow as it is the way commercial bees are running these days. Most commercial outfits are alot larger then they use to be, I run three thousand an I'm on the smaller end of things. What you end up having is alot bigger yards & alot of yards that are close together. There isn't enough bee pasture any more like there once was, crp is going away, corn is more & more every year. So pollen sub feeding is an important part of fall management these days.
 
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