Ok... I need answers

[Mr.Beeman]

Checked my hive today to find no live bees at all, maybe 300 dead. They were last checked (very quickly) on Dec.22 (it was warm temps) with tons of bees and stores. Stores are all there, no mites on the bottom board or feces, no AFB, no shb, conducted an alcohol wash on the dead bees.... nothing.
Why would all the bees leave? It makes no sense.

[sfisher]

CCD possibly?

[chrisd4421]

How close was the cluster To the honey? How tight was the cluster? Softball? Basketball? How cold has it been for the last few weeks?

I am thinking the 300 bees sounds like a small cluster and if it was cold enough, the swarm had issues even move a frame away to get to the honey.

Chris in NJ

[Acebird]

Why would all the bees leave? It makes no sense.

Welcome to beekeeping. You might get ten answers but you won't know what happen until it happens again knowing what the possibilities could be. Do you have one hive or multiple hives?

[NasalSponge]

Were the 300 clustered on the frames or on the bottom board? Any Pictures?

[Mr.Beeman]

The bees were on two frames towards the top right next to the honey. Literally, there wer 300 or so dead bees left in the hive. Very few on the bottom board maybe 20.

I will post pics tomorrow. I did have three hives... down to one.

CCD is when the hive just dies right? All the bees dead all at once? The bees in this hive just took off. Wierd that I didn't see them clustered in a nearby bush or tree. Man... this has my mind reeling.

[Bush_84]

Maybe the live bees had enough warm days to clean out their dead? 300 sounds like a pretty small number. Any chance you are underestimating?

[Acebird]

CCD is when the hive just dies right?

I think CCD is when the bees are just gone.

[beemandan]

First you would only see mite feces in cells if the colony had been actively producing brood. Second…if the bees were dead, the mites would have fallen off and an alcohol wash wouldn’t have done any good. Third….if there were only a few hundred remaining bees and all the mites had fallen off…even a moderately high infestation would not leave a huge number of mites on the bottom.
I am not saying that it was mites…I’m only saying that you haven’t established that it wasn’t.
Did you test/treat during the season?

[Acebird]

First you would only see mite feces in cells if the colony had been actively producing brood.

Where does the feces go?

[Mr.Beeman]

I did test during the season and never found a mite. I checked the bottom board many times.... no mites. Never treated simply because there was no mites to be found.
This morning I took the hive apart completely, no dead mites. You would think I'd find one if I had a problem.

Wierd thing that may help is that I found the queen on a frame with 100 or so bees. All dead of course. NO superceedure cells, NO queen cells, nothing to indicate she was new.

Lots of head scratching going on this morning. lol

[beemandan]

Where does the feces go?

The bees clean the cells out....feces and all. In a brood producing hive that is simultaneously collapsing from varroa, housecleaning will suffer. When a bee colony goes into a broodless period and is not in iimmediate collapse....those recently used cells will get a clean up.

[beemandan]

I did test during the season and never found a mite.

I'm not looking to be confrontational but....all bee colonies in North America have mites. Rather than presuming that I had no mites....I'd reevaluate the testing technique.
Again....I am not saying that varroa were a factor in your bee loss...

[Mr.Beeman]

I appreciate the replies and advice.
Shouldnt I find one dead mite on the bottom board? The bees cant get at it to clean it.
I will say however that I have learned a lot this year and my proceedures on keeping bees will change. I have to help eliminate or at least decrease the chances of this happening again.
I don't believe you are being confrontational beemandan. I'll be the first to let you know though. lol

[beemandan]

I will say however that I have learned a lot this year and my proceedures on keeping bees will change.

And like most of us will do so every year.

[FlowerPlanter]

CCD the bees leave and can't navigate to find there way back. Usually leaving a small number of bees and the queen.

There many reasons a hive will abscond. You found the queen so they did not abscond.

How much honey left? Save it for you or your next hive.

I agree there has to be mites somewhere in your hive. Do you have a bottom entrance all the way open? Maybe wind or insect cleared the mite off your bottom board.

A closed SBB with a tray or sticky paper will hold on to those mites, along with other pests.

[Maryland Beekeeper]

Sorry about your hive Mr. Beeman So there were two separate clusters, queen w/ the smaller ? distance between/orientation in box ? which varroa test(s) did you perform/frequency ?
Agree w/ :
-Flower, SBB
-beemandan, - the varroa test you described is not instructive

My feeling ? What was the temp on Dec 22nd ? Warm is a relative term, my guess is if I had popped up for dinner @ your place from MD,(In my LearJet 75) we would have disagreed on the matter. I would have come in Carhart coveralls and you'd be in shorts (My cousins are in/around Imlay city) Be that as it may..... When you checked on the 22nd 300 bees looked to you like tons. Why ? Cause they came rushing to the top of the combs to preserve heat. Also, in the hive you describe,(a colony of 300) you are looking for 9 mites, is perhaps a good way to consider varroa ? (my admittedly limited understanding) others will correct my #'s, along with everything else
Conclusion reached knowing absolutely nothing
in the end they froze, why were they so weak ? have to go back another inspection. Had the situation been known, could 300+queen have been, extra insulated ? divided off inside hive ? heated ? brought in ? and wintered successfully. would have made for interesting experiment
Cheers,
Drew

[Mr.Beeman]

Drew I appreciate the reply. Actually when I checked on them on the 22nd of Dec. there were 30,000 40,000 plus that were very much alive. When I checked yesterday there were only around 300 or so, but dead.

Warm here is anything above 32 degrees F. lol Seriously it was around 60F.

[beemandan]

-beemandan, - the varroa test you described is not instructive

What test did I describe?

[danno]

On Dec 22 your low temp was 23.3 deg and your high was 34.4
How do you know that you had "tons of bee's"