Dead hive -- ??

[karenarnett]

I've heard others describe but it's the first time for me to have a hive die mysteriously. A hive I started in 2006 recently died and I'm not sure why. The ground in front of the hive is covered with dead bees. There were a good number of dead bees on the bottom screen, and even a couple of live but barely moving bees. There were occasional deformed wings but it was not prevalent. There's dead brood in the cells, some looking like they died while emerging, others still capped and dead. There's also dead uncapped brood. There's plenty of capped honey, some uncapped and plenty of pollen. Something got the bees in the midst of an otherwise productive time.

Any thoughts? Is this another case of the mysterious colony collapse? It could well be that the bees were poisoned. There was no robbing of the hive, and though I did see a few small hive beetles, they were dead, and the honey appears to be untainted by SMH larvae.


I did see another post about a dead out and the comments pointed toward varroa mite overload. Still it's puzzling, the large pile of bees out front.

[sfisher]

Sounds like poison to me, when was the last time you looked at the hive?

[karenarnett]

I was pretty hands off this year, so I hadn't looked at the hive since probably July.

[sfisher]

I was just wondering if all the dead bees were just from a day, or if they had accumulating for weeks.

[karenarnett]

Good question. Wish I knew the answer. I think it was an accumulation from a short time - maybe more than a day, but less than weeks.

[JRG13]

Sounds like mites. I don't know what pesticides someone would be spraying now so close to winter.

[karenarnett]

In truth, I had a sense that the hive was dwindling about a month ago. Didn't do a mite count. The last bees to survive must have worked very hard pulling dead bees out of the hive. One odd thing is that there was one dead bee with pollen on her legs, as if she died whilst working. Perhaps it was just the falling temperatures late in the day that got her.

[ralittlefield]

Sounds like mites.

That was my first thought also. Or mite related virus. Some deformed wings were noted.

[JRG13]

Typically when people post bees dying while emerging or stuck in cells, it's mite related virus or just high pressure in general and the bees are sapped before they can emerge due to loss of so much nutrients. With CCD Karen, the hive is typically void of any bees, no dead ones either, you may find the lone queen still there.