# What Happened?!?! & Now What?!



## Falls-Acre (May 13, 2009)

I hadn't heard any buzzing from my hive in over a month. It's been really warm the last few days, but have seen no bees. So today I pulled out the door reducer block and nothing happened, so I took off the lid of the hive. No bees. I got my hive tool and started pulling out frames from the top box. Most of them were at least half-full of honey. I finally pried the top box off the lower box and still nothing moving. There was a small cluster (smaller than my hand) of dead bees crammed between 2 of the center frames. I pulled out more than half of these frames and they were all empty. Other than the cluster of dead bees in that one spot, there was also a small number of dead bees (also smaller than my hand) on the screen at the bottom of the hive.



What happened to my hive?! What happened to my bees?!?! :shrug: I don't know what to do now. I loved having bees. Was the winter just too harsh for them this year? Last year was very mild, and this is only the second winter I've had them.

I can't really afford to buy another hive and I honestly see nothing wrong with any of the top-box frames (still full of honey) or the bottom-box frames (empty, except for the few dead bees). Can any of this be used with a different set of bees? Did I do something wrong with them? Did the majority of them leave for some unknown reason? Please help, I'm really freaking out.

Also, can the honey the bees left still be used? Or should I leave it there for new bees? Or should I do something else entirely?


----------



## MNBobcat (Feb 4, 2011)

During the cold winter months the bees will cluster around the queen and fan their wings to keep the queen warm. The bees on the outside of the cluster will get cold and die. The drones will carry those dead bees outside of the hive and drop them on the ground on warmer winter days.

As long as the hive is strong going into winter, there is plenty of honey to feed them (it takes honey for the bees to have the energy to fan the queen and keep her warm) and you insulate the outside of the hives with hay bales, normally they will winter just fine.

I'm guessing you will need to re-queen the hive and they should do fine.


----------



## Falls-Acre (May 13, 2009)

Requeening won't work. All the bees are dead. I pulled out the frames and checked them. Either the bulk of the bees left, or they died over the winter. We don't usually have hard winters, but this one has been up and down. 

There's someone offering package bees locally. Can I simply clean out the hive and add a package of new bees and a queen?


----------



## ganesa_9 (Aug 15, 2010)

This just happened to one of my hives too. About a month and a half ago it was going strong, checked this weekend and it was empty... maybe a half dozen dead bees, no signs of any disease, and a super and a half of honey. I was told to just put a new package of bees in the hive and go for it. The new bees will clean up any old mess, will appreciate teh already drawn comb and the honey will help them in their new hive. Sounds like OK advice to me, so that's what I'll be doing.


----------



## indypartridge (Oct 26, 2004)

From what I'm hearing locally as well as reading online, this may be a worse-than-average year for winter deadouts. It may not be that you did anything wrong, sometimes they just die. Might have been mites. Might have been nosema. Might have been any number of things. Sounds like yours just dwindled to the point where the cluster wasn't large enough to endure the cold.

I cleaned some deadouts this weekend that had been strong heading into winter, still had plenty of honey, looked like a good population of bees, (they were flying just a few weeks ago on a warm day), but now they were all dead on the bottom. It happens.

You can order a package of bees and put them in your hive. Since they have drawn comb, they should take off rapidly.

If you have room in your freezer, freeze the frames of honey until you get your new bees.


----------



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Yes you can reuse the hives frames and all for new bees. If you didn't treat for mites or Nosema you can even use the honey they left on the table. I how ever would leave it for the new bees for a quicker start.

Another reason for having two colonies. You could split the remaining colony when queens are on tghe market again.

I think the mites got the best of your colony and they didn't have enough bees in the cluster to keep warm.

The cluster keeps moving all winter. Bees on the outside edge work to the center and those in the center work to the edges. As the bees age during the winter they die also.

Drones do not normally make it to winter. Since they are useless for any thing other than to mate with new queens they are throwen out of the hive in the fall. 


Wind breaks help. Insulation isn't really needed for a colony to make it thru the winter.










 Al


----------



## ace admirer (Oct 5, 2005)

hmmm, i don't think drones do house keeping, they are there for one function only, there butts are usually kicked out of the hive before winter approaches....more are raises as spring approaches.

the mite theory brought up sounds reasonable to me... also Honey can be in the hive, if the cluster cannot be maintained AND access to the honey acheaved, you can still have a problem.


----------



## jjstephens (Mar 8, 2013)

Same thing happened to me. Hive looked strong last fall. Checked the hive on Sunday--nothing--not even any dead bees! Had the hive insulated and it wasn't even that bad of a winter--only two brief spells of really cold weather. We did, however, have lots of wind this winter. This is the second year in a row this has happened (deep sigh).

Just ordered two packages for April delivery.


----------



## Falls-Acre (May 13, 2009)

I placed an order for 2 packages of bees to arrive mid-April. I'll try to secure a second hive before then and put one of the original brood boxes with each hive. I'd been wanting another hive, it just didn't happen.


----------



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

My experince has been that insulating a hive doesn't help so much. there are several reasons I have came to that option. If the wind isn't blocked in some way it can drop the tempture around a bee hive by as much as 25F. We have used straw bales and big round hay bales to make wind breaks as well as pine trees that were cut down for the tops.Not doing any thing to rid the hives of moisture is a good way to loose colonies too. The hive needs to be tilted so the moisture drains out the entrance if you have solid bottom boards. Placeing a empty deep above the bees filled with straw cedar chips and dry leaves soaks up moisture.

Mite control is totally important I feel. During the summer a good queen can keep up with the death rate in a hive from the mite load. Winter is a time when the queen doesn't lay large amounts of eggs to keep up with mite loss. In turn the cluster keeps getting smaller and smaller to the point they can not maintain a cluster to keep the hive warm enough.

If you have a question on why your bees died during the winter send a sample to the maryland bee lab. Your taxes pays for it use it.

 Al


----------



## Gritty (Nov 26, 2012)

We fell into keeping bees by accident. Well, not really an accident, but after talking about keeping bees for the past ten years, they came to us this past summer. Sometime in may or June my husband called me out to "take a look at something." We had a tiny colony of bees setting up a hive on the outside of one of our garbage cans. The can was next to a shed and had an unused water catchment tank to the other side. We left them alone. They grew and before long, had stretched out to span the (small) gap between the tank and the can. We kept saying we should get a hive, but didn't do anything about it. Took a visit o my parents at the end of July and thought they'd pick up and move before returned. Nope. They were even more vigorous and the comb was three layers deep. So we got a beekeeping friend come out to help us transfer them before the weather started getting bad. They did terrific all fall, plenty of honey---then---same thing. Didn't hear buzzing, looked in and saw no sign of life, but still honey reserves  I have trepidation about getting more bees, but we have the hive...and honey. Kind of wish they chose someone with a little more experience with bees... Like the tip about tilting the hive.


----------



## ambleside (Oct 13, 2009)

There is a lot of good info on these posts. I see experience here. I have found that bee keepers tend to help each other a lot.

Yes tilt your hive..moisture will kill them. Clear out the front of hive of snow too so the air can get in...helps with moisture control. One year I had a lot of dead bees and honey above them ...and mold. I believe it was the moisture that did it. It was very damp inside.

Mites will be your number 1 problem for having bees last the winter, There is a "Mite Away" pad you can get during the honey season that you can use during the summer and fall that won't interfere with your honey crop. Correct me if I'm wrong on the name of the pad for treatment. Some times you can buy a few of them from one of the local bee keepers in your area instead of footing the bill for the whole box. That's what I did. Read the directions, I believe 50 degrees is the lowest temperature you can use it and you have to give the hive plenty of room for air to fan, Too closed up and you will kill off a large part of your hive..This stuff has worked for me, I have yet to lose a hive to mites.

Important to note! If you see the bees hauling out white bee larva's or bees with deformed wings, You have a mite problem...Treat you hive asap. 
These are new bees being hauled out to make room for more Honey bee eggs and a place for more mites.
The drone cells will hold the most mites because they take longer to mature and it give the mites an opportunity to have more that one generation to exist before the drone bee comes out. Read how to use the drone cells to your advantage to control your mite problem..That works too.

Also, A mite board on the bottom of your hive is a must. The Mites have a tendency to drop and with a little vegetable oil spread out on the board under the screen , you will capture a large population of mites that literally drown in the thinly spread oil.

The winter can be harsh enough to not let your bees get to the upper frames to get honey. Found dead bees the way you did with a lot of honey in the upper frames. 

As you have warm and cold temps during the winter the ball of bees will expand and contract with the temperatures and when the ball expands the ball will gain access to the honey and move towards the honey. At least I hope they do..Mites will slow down a lot of progress when the bees are cold.

More later......Hope this helps!


----------



## Falls-Acre (May 13, 2009)

I went and talked to the "Honey Guy" locally, I never knew he lives just 5 miles down the road! Have known him for years, beekeeping is what he does. I bought honey from him for years before getting my own hive, then talked with him over the last 2 years from time to time about maybe taking one of his classes, but never did. Well, yesterday I went to visit him and he presented me with a 2nd hive, in used but usable condition. He also reminded me that he is here if I ever need him, to just give him a call and he'll help me with my bees.

He also told me that this has been a hard winter for bees locally. That he himself had lost 22 hives this winter. I should have gone to him sooner, but at least now I don't feel so alone here.


----------



## Gritty (Nov 26, 2012)

I read that if it gets really cold, the bees in their huddle around the queen might eat up the honey closest to them, but won't get the further out honey. Don't think that was our problem, since we our winters are pretty mild. I also heard (read?) that in a natural comb, the cells are built tighter, so the bees have to squeeze through them, which keeps mite problems down/nonexistent. I am not even an amateur, so I don't know how factual either of those statements are---


----------



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Some thoughts about small cells are the mites don't like them so it cuts down on the mite production. You should combine the small cell foundation with drone comb. pull the drone comb every 20 days and freeze it insert a different one at that time. The bees will clean out the cells for the queen to lay in again. Had a lady at one of our out yards call me once when I had taken a fresh thawed frame installed it just hours before. She seen the girls removing the dead larva and thought some thing was wrong.

Yes the pads are called *MITE AWAY II,* usda approved for organic operations. they are formic acid and you need a resperater and rubber gloves when useing them.

 Al


----------



## Medora (Apr 10, 2013)

I lost me hive as well. As others have stated, this seems to have been a terrible winter for bees. I believe the fluctuations temperatures have been horrible for bees. My hive had plenty of honey, but not as many dead bees as I would of thought. Maybe they died while on a cleaning flight?

Another thing I noticed in my hive is the presence of only a few drone cells. It looks like my queen might have died and a worker started laying? 

The dead bees all look healthy. No deformities. I will start testing and treating for mites this year with my two new hives.

I have only been keeping bees for 3 years (2 winters). My first winter I lost a hive and there were so many bees. They had starved to death as they were all head first in the comb. There was still some honey on the outer sides, but I guess it was too cold and they couldn't get at it. So last summer I went from 10 frames/box to 9 frames, adding the dividers hoping that they would have thicker combs on the inside and therefore more honey. There certainly is a lot of honey in there!

I cleaned out the hive. I had 3 deep boxes in it. The lower one was pretty empty so I took out 5 frames (to leave room for a nucleus i have ordered) and transferred 4 frames with honey into it. I then placed another box with some honey in it on top.
I then took the third box full of honey, and other box with a little honey and set up another hive for a package of bees that I'm getting.

I'm feeling confident (and excited) that with that much honey already in the 2 hives, my new bees are going to have a real great start!


----------



## copperkid3 (Mar 18, 2005)

For want of a better term (and/or diagnosis), the symptoms described

usually fall into what has been termed C.C.D. or colony collapse disorder.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder 

*Colony collapse disorder*-(*CCD*) is a phenomenon in which worker bees from 
a-beehive-or European honey bee colony abruptly disappear. While such disappearances 
have occurred throughout the history of-apiculture, and were known by various names
("disappearing disease","spring dwindle",-"May disease",-"autumn collapse", and-
"fall dwindle disease"),-the syndrome was renamed-"colony collapse disorder"
-in late 2006-in conjunction with a drastic rise in the number of disappearances of 
Western-honeybee-colonies in-North America-at that time.
-European beekeepers observed similar phenomena in Belgium, France, 
the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, and initial reports have 
also come in from Switzerland and-Germany, albeit to a lesser degree-while 
the-Northern Ireland Assembly received reports of a decline greater than 50%.

The growth of-neonicotinoids-such as-clothianidin-and-imidacloprid, some of the 
most widely-used-pesticides-in the world, has roughly tracked rising bee deaths since 2005.

-In 2012, several peer reviewed independent studies were published showing
that neonicotinoids had previously undetected routes of exposure affecting bees
including through dust, pollen, and nectar;-that sub-nanogram toxicity resulted
in failure to return to the hive without immediate lethality,the primary symptom of CCD;
-and indicating environmental persistence of neonicotinoid in irrigation channels and soil.
-These studies prompted a formal 2013 peer review by the-European Food Safety Authority
-that said neonicotinoids pose an unacceptably high risk to bees, and that the
industry-sponsored science upon which regulatory agencies' claims of safety have relied is flawed.
-CCD is probably compounded by a combination of factors.

-In 2007, some authorities attributed the problem to-biotic factors such 
as"Varroa"-mites,"Nosema apis"-parasites, and-Israel acute paralysis virus.

-Other contributing factors may include environmental change-related stress,
-malnutrition, and migratory beekeeping.


http://science.howstuffworks.com/zoology/insects-arachnids/colony-collapse-disorder.htm


----------

