Last Saturday I installed twenty packages of bees, each in a ten frame Langstroth hive body with a division board feeder (filled and with floats) and 8frames of HSC. The weather was unseasonably cold and rainy that day and every subsequent day until Thursday; we had frosts every night and highs in the low fifties.
On Tuesday morning I went out to check on them and found that while some had significant activity at the hive entrances others had almost none. When I peaked under the cover of the hives which were not flying, I found the bees clustered in the center of the hives several frames away from the feeder starving and almost too cold to move (the bees which were sending out foragers were all clustered next to the dbf). In a panic I brought these hives (8 total) into a small barn and closed them into the hives with a screen entrance closure and turned on the heat to try and warm them enough that they would move over to the feeder. They stayed in the barn until Thursday morning.
Early on Thursday I moved these eight hives back outside as the forecast predicted it would reach the mid 60's and be sunny. That afternoon I inspected all twenty hives to make sure that the queens had all been released and to assess the damages. I found 15 hives in good shape with queens that had been released and an adequate number of bees remaining. Four hives had not clustered around the queen cage although she, and her attendants, had been alive at the time of installation. Those queens were dead and the remaining bees had severely depleted populations. One hive had successfully released its queen but also had lost a large number of bees. I decided that the next day I would combine the five weakened colonies into two hives and introduce a new queen to one. The following day when I returned two of the four queenless hives were completely dead and the other two queenless hives were almost gone (about 1 frame of bees remaining)
I combined these two hives with the weakened queenright hive and added a frame of capped brood and bees from another established colony for good measure.
So while a week ago I had twenty packages I now have only sixteen new colonies. What I want to know is what went wrong; was there something I could have done differently to have avoided a 20% loss in the first week? Was it just the unfortunate consequence of circumstances beyond my control (i.e. weather)? Looking back I think had I painted the packages with sugar syrup prior to installation perhaps they would better have been able to move within the hive once installed. With the last several packages I made a greater effort to gently push them towards the feeder when installing the frames on top of the bees that had been dumped onto the bottom board; that seemed to have helped, as those packages all seemed to have survived. Any other suggestions?
On Tuesday morning I went out to check on them and found that while some had significant activity at the hive entrances others had almost none. When I peaked under the cover of the hives which were not flying, I found the bees clustered in the center of the hives several frames away from the feeder starving and almost too cold to move (the bees which were sending out foragers were all clustered next to the dbf). In a panic I brought these hives (8 total) into a small barn and closed them into the hives with a screen entrance closure and turned on the heat to try and warm them enough that they would move over to the feeder. They stayed in the barn until Thursday morning.
Early on Thursday I moved these eight hives back outside as the forecast predicted it would reach the mid 60's and be sunny. That afternoon I inspected all twenty hives to make sure that the queens had all been released and to assess the damages. I found 15 hives in good shape with queens that had been released and an adequate number of bees remaining. Four hives had not clustered around the queen cage although she, and her attendants, had been alive at the time of installation. Those queens were dead and the remaining bees had severely depleted populations. One hive had successfully released its queen but also had lost a large number of bees. I decided that the next day I would combine the five weakened colonies into two hives and introduce a new queen to one. The following day when I returned two of the four queenless hives were completely dead and the other two queenless hives were almost gone (about 1 frame of bees remaining)
I combined these two hives with the weakened queenright hive and added a frame of capped brood and bees from another established colony for good measure.
So while a week ago I had twenty packages I now have only sixteen new colonies. What I want to know is what went wrong; was there something I could have done differently to have avoided a 20% loss in the first week? Was it just the unfortunate consequence of circumstances beyond my control (i.e. weather)? Looking back I think had I painted the packages with sugar syrup prior to installation perhaps they would better have been able to move within the hive once installed. With the last several packages I made a greater effort to gently push them towards the feeder when installing the frames on top of the bees that had been dumped onto the bottom board; that seemed to have helped, as those packages all seemed to have survived. Any other suggestions?
