February In The Apiary
Hive Two
Let’s start with the good news.
Hive Two looks healthy. 20 bees flying around at any one time on sunny days and I placed the varroa count board under the hive for 6 days and counted 0 varroa. I suspect that another reason for it’s success is that it is protected from the wind and has an insulated roof. Photos below.
Zoom in below – see if you can find any mites:
This hive has been varroa-free since May 2014. I wrote about this under From 2,000 To 0 Varroa In 8 Months.
Hive Five
I wrote about Hive Five under Colony Post-Mortem. I have now placed old comb on the bonfire and the good frames are currently in the freezer. Conclusions: died of mite overload and cold.
Hive Three
This is the other hive I moved which could also be too exposed to the elements. I saw plenty of flying bees two weeks ago but it has been quieter recently. I counted 6 mites over 6 days on the varroa board which calculates a rough estimate of 50-400 mites and treatment required in 3-5 months. There was not much debris on the board, see photo below, so I’m worried about Hive Three too.
Hive One
I think there are some bees in Hive One, but only a few. The Queen is five years old. I’m hoping she will supercede. I have yet to place a varroa board underneath. Photo of landing board below. Is the brown stuff dysentery or propolis or mud? And would some dysentery here be OK or bad?
Conclusions
It looks like I will have had a terrible winter. The reasons:
- In at least one hive, I failed to adequately control the varroa. I need to improve on this.
- In the dead hive and the two weak ones, despite good intentions, I have not insulated the roofs and they have porter bee escapes and vented roofs allowing air to flow through and chill the bees. I guess quite a few other new beekeepers have this problem, as this is how the hives arrive. I will use solid crown boards and insulated roofs next winter (but guess it is good to allow ventilation in summer)
- Moving the two hives 100m over rough ground would not have helped. I will only move nucs or swarms in the new out-apiary location rather than move full colonies
Hard lessons for someone who was hoping to expand to 6 hives this summer.
I’m also thinking that bee equipment suppliers should include roof insulation as standard and advice on closing off any vents over winter.
Share this:
Hive 2 is really good news -especially regarding varroa. Did you operate the same anti varroa regime on all hives? I’m with you regarding roof insulation and ventilation issues. I’ve yet to do a varroa count – so I won’t know the effectiveness of Beevital just yet. Keep the faith and all the best this Summer.
I’m obviously no expert, but I think the drone culling I did in May 2014 was the intervention that made the main difference.
It’s too early for me to say I use a consistent varroa management practice, but I am aiming at drone culling, Apiguard and Oxalic Acid as the main interventions. Though if I like a Queen and her workers and there is a low varroa count in that hive I would not cull those drone as I would want them to fertilise any new Queens.
Great that hive two has such a low mite count.
Rather than buying new roofs and crownboard, you could place fondant over one crownboard hole, wood over the second one and then place insulation over the top. I use those silver insulation sheets they sell in Wickes.
Thanks Emily. I’ll look at the options.
I put my ambrosia fondant in microwave containers and place it over the crow board hole. This creates an easy way to store the paste, a bee space to avoid crushing any bees when putting it on the crown board and a block to winds whistling through the hive as it acts as kind of a cap.
I am using the wool insulation that came with an order from Riverford Organic as a blanket on top. It is conveniently encased in non toxic wrap so wool bits don’t go astray but the material remains breathable.
All sounds organised doesn’t it? Ha!
I was alarmed to discover about three weeks ago one of my hives had some signs of dysentry, some dead bees near the entrance,and a yeasty smell. I was there to give them some sugar paste and noticed there was a lot of agitation/ noise in the hive at this time also. I am suspecting Nosema and at this time of year not too sure what to do about it.
Everything seems to have settled down now and the hive still has activity but as the Spring is taking its time in arriving I don’t dare have a proper look yet as that could spell ultimate disaster.
Looks like another season where my livestock are trying their best to be dead stock :/
Considering how much we spend on Varroa medcines, a bit of Kingspan insulation is a cheap investment, it can be taken out of any builders skip for free or the pice of a pint at worst, as a builder I insulate my hives to the same standard as my house. I’m not a betting man but I would bet a fiver that hive one has Nosema, but I hope I’m wrong.
I was wondering why have you not re-queened hive one?
Good Luck for 2015
Thanks Alan. I didn’t have a Queen Cell at the right time to put into Hive One, otherwise, that is what I would have done. Why do you think Hive One has Nosema?
Hi Roger,
Bees normally fly away from their hives to defaecate,so the staining on the alighting board would worry me.Although long distance diagnoses are only guesses,you won’t really know until you open the hive up and see if there is staining on the combs.
Not wishing to labour the point about a 5year old queen,but could a queen store enough sperm to lay eggs for 5 years? maybe she has been superceded.
Just time for a humerous take on defecation away from the hive. Today I perched next to the hive to watch the comings and goings and was pleased to see pollen going in. I wanted to see where they are finding it, as they are ignoring the crocus patches planted last Summer. One bee rose from the entrance,in a curving spiral and as I watched, released her load and it landed on my thumb narrowly missing my cup of coffee. I expect she thought she was far enough away from the hive, but it was only vertical distance!
I have also had a disappointing winter. Thought I had 3 good hives, but with the return of warm weather, only one is active. I made a brief investigation of hive 2 to find a much reduced number of bees. What on earth causes such a drastic reduction? I very carefully controlled varroa last summer and autumn and have continually fed all hives. Why do the bees become so reduced just as the blossom flow begins?
It’s a hard time of year for colonies Jasmine – the winter bees that have kept the colony going are dying off and the surviving bees are desperately trying to raise new bees at a time when they may be running low on stores. If the queen is not laying very well or they’ve lost the queen that could cause it, or nosema is a very common problem and shortens the lifespan of bees, weakening the colony. I have the same issue myself with a couple of hives, very small and weak 🙁
Hi Roger – Don’t know if you’ve ever used Hive Clean for varroa? I’ve been using it for several seasons now and apply it every inspection – it works a treat at controlling varroa plus other benefits (can be used anytime – doesn’t taint honey – its organic – no equipment etc needed). Have not needed to use any other treatment as they go into winter with a very low count (zero at my last autumn inspection!!)
p.s I have no financial interest!!!
Good luck with the new season
David
Hi Roger, really sorry to hear about your bees, you must be really disappointed. I had a couple of thoughts when I saw some of the photos and read your conclusions. The first colony you found, I think there was a photo of winters stores that looked like crystallised rape honey and wondered if that had contributed to starvation. I’m obviously no expert, but I’d have thought that this year being so mild, cold would be unlikely to affect them unless they already had other problems. I didn’t insulate mine this year (lack of forethought rather than strategy). Haven’t opened them up yet, but there are a lot of bees flying on sunny days.
On the nosema front, a similar point really, most strong colonies would be more able to fight it, and this winter the bees won’t have been trapped inside for long periods either, so they’d have more chance of keeping infection down than in a long hard winter.
I don’t know anything about the treatment for comb and frames following nosema (you’ve got me looking it up now!) but I wondered why you didn’t melt the comb down to keep the wax? When I do comb changes (aiming for every 3-4 years to improve hive hygiene, although my effort at shook swarm last year failed entirely), I use a very low tech system of cutting comb out and melting it all down in the oven, filtering to remove pupal lining, then separating honey off – generally not good for eating – and saving the wax. It’s quite time consuming, but I’ve got a couple of kilos of wax now that I’ll be able to swap for foundation at a later date. The first time I did it I over-heated it thinking the pupa residue was unmelted wax but now I know what I’m doing, the wax comes up surprisingly clean.
Hi Carolyn, it was crystallised sugar syrup, but I can understand why you think it looks like crystallised rape honey. I’ll look into melting down the wax. Busy with two young kids I just took the quickest option this season.
Now that I’ve been into my bees I’ve got exactly the same, they ate way less honey than usual & now it’s all set – took it off & started the laborious process of melting it down, without a solar extractor it’s a long old slog so don’t blame you, I’m just too tight to let it go!
How strong are your hives looking? My one remaining colony looked quite weak … 4 partial frames of bees in the middle of the day. I’m really unhappy about how it’s gone this winter.