Dead Hive

[Wm.Mike]

Checked out my 2 hives this morning and found one dead and the other doing well.
The dead hive had a pile of bees in the bottom and one or two on the comb. This hive was a swarm I caught last summer, they seemed to go thru summer ok. I had to do a major rebuild during the summer where they had cross combed and had some collapse. They had drawn out 4 whole comb and half a dozen partial but there was hardly ant stores. When I checked hem in the fall they had full comb with honey, pollen and brood. Wonder what happened Will have to clean it up and start again. What should I do with all of the old comb, some is clean white some dark brown.

Mike

[Delta Bay]

As long as they are free of diseases like AFB, EFB, or defecation you should be able to use them to install bees on. You could also use them to aid in spring buildup of your existing hive. Then at some point you could draw a split from your one hive to place in the empty hive.

[eriklane]

Are you saying they ran out of food? Ours just left, as did a friends, and, a neighbor's Lang. Vacated. Split. Vamoosed. And, did it in December!

I'm going to do a Warre' next...I don't like the horizontal anymore. It doesn't resemble a tree, and not enough ventilation, but, I think the worst part is them having to go around combs unless you drill holes...Warre' is so much better now that I've done some research...