# Maybe I'm a mean beekeeper.



## Michael W. Smith (Jun 2, 2002)

I got into bees 4 years ago. Bought a package 4 years ago and it died out that winter.
I got another package the following Spring and was given a hive with bees. They survived. And in the Spring I divided one of them - and had 3. I then picked up swarm after swarm and was up to 12 hives.

I knew going into the fall last year, many of the swarms seemed like they hadn't done much to gather honey. I took more of a "survival of the fittest" mind - figured if they didn't get enough honey made from June and on, then perhaps they aren't good genetics to keep.

With the thaw, I got out to the beeyard and out of 12 hives, I have 3 that survived. Many of the swarms that seemed fairly big going into the winter - I opened up and there are hardly any bees in them. I have to wonder about colony collapse disorder - because WHERE did they go? There just isn't enough dead bees to make up what there should be - in fact, there are very few bees.

Even the one hive that was over 3 years old - didn't make it. They didn't starve - the whole hive is filled with honey, but I didn't get into the hive to see how many bees are actually in it.

I'll pick up more swarms this year - and maybe this year they will do better. One thing with the swarms - they had to draw out all new comb. This year the swarms will have a head start since the hives now have drawn out comb. Another thing I didn't do with the swarms was feed them to get them good and strong. Again, I figured they would be fine on their own.


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## Judy in IN (Nov 28, 2003)

Well, with the drought and heat this year, I decided to leave the pink board insulation on my hives. I split one buster hive 3 ways, but didn't wrap any of the splits. Those were the only hives to beard this summer.

I had 3 cut-outs from July two summers ago. I gave them another deep, but didn't expect them to do much. 

I'm pretty happy with all of my hives, performance-wise. Since it's supposed to be really hot again this year, I'm leaving the insulation. Seems to me, if bees are busy hauling water and fanning, they aren't making as much honey.

We take bees out of trees and walls where they have pretty good insulation and stick them in a box with 1/2 walls. No wonder we lose so many.


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## johng (Feb 14, 2009)

What where your mite counts going into winter? After a couple years the mites can build up. And the bigger and better the hive does the more the mites build up. So a really big robust colony in the fall can be eat up with mites going in to the winter and the mites get the upper hand before spring arrives.


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## notbutanapron (Jun 30, 2011)

Maybe I'm being ridiculous as I have no experience and am only going of my Father in law... but he says if he lets his hives get too full of honey his bees just swarm and leave their hive to make another one. There was a huge bloom of some local flower and the hives were just filling quickly one year and he lost a ton because he simply couldn't empty them fast enough. He had quite a few hundred hives, if I recall. [or if my shed of wax has anything to say about it]


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## Treewhisper (Nov 24, 2010)

Bees will swarm in Sept especially when your feeding the hive to get them through winter. Its a fine line. If they dont have enough space to pack food they fill in the brood area. If the brood area is too small they feel the hive is overcrowded and will swarm to find a bigger place. I've fed in Sept but then had to take some of the brood nest frames and spin them out to make sure they werent honey bound. The best way to stop this is to leave a super on over winter so they pack that instead of the brood area and you dont necessarily have to feed them either. 

If you find the hive had tons of stores of honey but the bees died in a small ball in the corner with honey only 2 inches away, it was the mites that killed them. The bees decimated by the mites being so small in number did not want to break cluster to lose warmth to go get the honey so they basically starved to death in a hive full of food.


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## ace admirer (Oct 5, 2005)

you are their keeper


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