Lost a hive

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Lost a hive

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sally_in_wales
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 20809
Location: sunny wales

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 06 1:21 pm Post subject: Lost a hive

Just been to inspect the troops, and we've lost a hive

No idea what happened, a while back we split the hive leaving this one with a very healthy colony and taking a smaller batch off elsewhere. Today its full of wasps, waxmoth larvae (horrid things) and dead bees.

No easy way to tell if a disease got them or whether it was the wasps, but it looks as if they had been working happily until about a week or so ago. Poo

The other hive is thriving though, Its got a double brood box and one is full of honey so given the problems with the other one we're not going to harvest anything, just let them stay as they are to overwinter, they have good stores in and are battening down with propolis madly, so we'll see how they weather the winter.

Wasn't feeling fab today anyway, dead bees is not a good addition to the afternoon

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 06 1:26 pm Post subject:
Poo indeed. Sorry to hear that Sally. Are wasps known for evicting bees from hives then?

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 06 1:26 pm Post subject:
Sorry to hear that. Bummer.

sally_in_wales
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 20809
Location: sunny wales

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 06 1:27 pm Post subject:
sometimes if there enough of them they can outnumber the guards and get inside, once they are in, the bees seem to ignore them, and it can be too late. But, there were a lot of dead bees and I didnt see many dead wasps, so I don't know if there was a battle or just something nasty

Alchemist

Joined: 02 Mar 2005
Posts: 123
Location: Aberdeenshire

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 06 2:35 pm Post subject:

Sorry to hear about your hive Sally. Glad to hear the other one's doing fine though. I'm pretty sure I nearly lost my only hive about four weeks ago or so to something similar (except caused by inexperience on my part in this case

). I put the uncappings from when we extracted the honey into a bowl and left it near the hive for the bees to clean out. Went out the next day and there were dead bees and wasps all over the place. Looked like there had been a terrific fight, but thankfully the bees appeared to have won in the end.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45670
Location: Essex

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 06 2:37 pm Post subject:
Sorry to hear that sally

Andy B

Joined: 12 Jan 2005
Posts: 3920
Location: Brum

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 06 3:03 pm Post subject:
Thats a shame, always fancied bee keeping but i dont think it would go down well with the neibourghs!

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 06 3:11 pm Post subject:

Sorry to hear that sally.
Wasps will attack a weak colony & take both stores & larvae. A strong healthy colony will have enough guards to fend off wasps. It's a real battle, Wasps are larger & can sting repeatedly whereas bees only sting once.
If you see wasps entering a hive with little resistance reducing the entrance to one bee space & get in the hive to see what the problem is.
My suspicion is not disease but when you split them the queen was in the box that did well & there wasn't any brood in the other box to raise a new queen. Can you see any dead brood in the combs?. So basically the hive died of old age with no young bees being produced.
In case of disease it would be best to remove the infected hive to stop the other bees robbing & thus spreading the infection.

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 06 3:20 pm Post subject:
Or possibly they raised a new queen but she didn't get mated. Because most of the wild colonies have died out through varoa there are fewer drones on the wing & more virgin queens returning unmated. Are there any other beekeepers in your area? Steve.

KatP

Joined: 19 May 2006
Posts: 79
Location: Aberdeenshire

Posted: Fri Sep 15, 06 12:43 pm Post subject:

Bummer.

We had something similar. One of our two hives became queenless for some reason early in June (didn't look like they'd swarmed either) and the new queen was either unmated or a drone layer, so the bees got rid of her. Gave them a frame of brood from the other hive, but they did nowt with it, so we've had to combine them with the other hive to get them through the winter. Hopefully we'll be able to split them eary next year and go back to two hives.

No honey this year.

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Fri Sep 15, 06 1:00 pm Post subject:
If anyones interested I have a spare copy of snelgroves "swarming its control & prevention." The chapter on artificial swarming is invaluable.

KatP

Joined: 19 May 2006
Posts: 79
Location: Aberdeenshire

Posted: Fri Sep 15, 06 5:23 pm Post subject:
Possibly, what would you like for it? Despite much advice and two excellent tutors, we appear to have b***ered it up somewhat this year. But at least we still have some bees. For the moment at least. And hundreds of apples!

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Fri Sep 15, 06 7:17 pm Post subject:
I have sent a pm Kat.

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