My step dad called. His hive that produced over 180 pounds of honey last year is dead. I actually had the hive tested in the fall for both V and T mites and nosema. It had some V-Mites but everything else was good. We hit them with apiguard per label to knock the mites down. Everything was good when we buttoned them up for winter. Last week he checked them and there was over 1/2 a 5 gallon bucket of dead bees. There was about 3 frames of honey in the bottom box and about 3 frames in the top against the walls. My first guess if they were not able to move to the honey frames. A commercial friend says they may have lost the queen...but that makes no sense at all. Is there ever just genetics that cause hives to not tolerate the cold?
My guess still is starvation....but there are not a lot of bees head first in the cells like i usually see.
JoeMcc
My guess still is starvation....but there are not a lot of bees head first in the cells like i usually see.
JoeMcc