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Hive loss

2K views 6 replies 6 participants last post by  Mr.Beeman 
#1 ·
We went into winter with 36 hives and now have 20. We feed last fall to be sure they would have enough to get through the winter. January we opened the hives, on a warm day. Still had plenty of honey, active, no brood. Added a pollen patty and closed. Last week we finally got some warm weather and found 16 dead hives. All still have honey, none have brood. Some have no bees, not dead or otherwise. Some have a small cluster of dead bees on a honey frame. Anyone have any ideas? The rest are looking good, no brood started yet, but active bees bringing in pollen from somewhere.
Also had a hive 7 miles from here. It's the same story, no bees lots of honey.
 
#3 ·
Did you test or treat for varroa?
If not, I would encourage you to at least test next season and depending on your treatment philosophy act accordingly. Even if you choose not to treat, testing may give you an answer to this question next winter.
Good luck.
 
#4 ·
Had some of the same. 2 hives alive and well in December, bees gone in Feb., looked like someone hit them with a bee vac. Treated with MAQS like the hives sitting adjacent that are all doing fine. Plenty of honey in the empty hives. It is like they absconded sometime in January on a warm day. IF you fgure it out please let me know.
 
#5 ·
dan, have you noticed that losses like these are a recurring theme.

i wonder if the parasitism from the mites is enough to weaken the bees and cause them to die while in cluster formation? are they just not strong enough to keep warm? maybe it just looks like starvation because they are stuck in the cells, but that's how they cluster and they could have just got cold.

have any specific viruses been linked to collapses such as these?

could it be that they have been weakened by n. ceranae?

could it be a combination of all of the above?

are losses like these still seen in hives where the mites have been knocked back in the fall?
 
#6 ·
It happened to me this year when we had a three week unexpected cold snap in January. My bees starved, they literally died in the last days of the cold snap as I was able to revive a couple of the dead bees with honey on the first warm day when I opened the hive. After they died, I harvested 2 gallons of honey from the hive. It was just that the honey was not where the cluster was in the hive.
 
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