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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #5618  by Japey Edge
 30 Jan 2020, 21:14
I had a quick walk around and hefted the hives. Starting to become concerned they're not eating enough of their stores...
I'm happy with them, although a little concerned at Hive 3, my national with the new queen. The concerns are:
1. I saw a lot of bee parts on the inspection board. Never seen so many before. Unsure what's going on
2. The colony seems to be shrinking. I can see straight down gaps between frames, which I had hoped would be stuffed with bees, and they're not eating much as both sides of most frames I can see are fully capped.

Pics below. Any thoughts/advice on this situation welcome.

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 #5620  by Patrick
 30 Jan 2020, 23:38
Sure they are just fine Jazz. You can only see the bees at the top through your clear crownboard, but if they are down into the frames their could be more than you think. Not eating all their stores is not a problem - they will increasingly use it up as they start to raise more brood, hence the old saying about most bees starving in March. It was about 14 degrees here today, they are hardly working hard to keep warm at the moment.

The bee parts is also pretty normal - as older winter bees start to die off whilst in the hive more than in the summer, when they tend to die whilst out foraging, you will likely see the parts that have dropped off and through the mesh floor. Also ants and such like will dismember whole bees if they encounter them as a normal part of cleaning up. In over simple terms, every day a thousand eggs gets laid means inevitably a thousand bees must also die off another day.

Only thing maybe worth checking is that bees cant find themselves by mistake between the floor and the insert, in which case they can find themselves stranded.
 #5624  by Alfred
 31 Jan 2020, 07:50
I too have a hive that appears to be on the way out. I have to tap the perspe to get them to surface,their appetite. isn't great and they don't fly
I'm comparing it to a nuc with a '19 queen that is the exact opposite
 #5625  by Chrisbarlow
 31 Jan 2020, 08:45
Alfred wrote:
31 Jan 2020, 07:50
I too have a hive that appears to be on the way out. I have to tap the perspe to get them to surface,their appetite. isn't great and they don't fly
I'm comparing it to a nuc with a '19 queen that is the exact opposite
don't count your chickens till they've hatched and all that.

Come the glorious 1st April.
 #5626  by Patrick
 31 Jan 2020, 08:56
To be glass half full .. across an apiary they will often behave differently including how they winter. I have written off a persistently non flying colony only to find in the spring they are clustered happily deep in the box.

Half empty view.. if the queen has succumbed for whatever reason they can lose heart and hunker down. But there is nothing useful you can do in that scenario in winter anyway, so let’s dismiss that and assume it’s all just fine 😁

Just seen Chris’s response - what he said 👍
 #5634  by Alfred
 31 Jan 2020, 20:40
Perhaps they voted Stay and this will be their ultimate protest.The others planning a 23:00hrs shindig.

Paternal worry I suppose.
I've done everything I can for them
My (100% !!) loss last year was down to a lack of preparation (well,neglect actually) on someone else's part ,although they were still foraging and chomping expensive fondant 3 days before.

Drove past the last hopyard in the area being dismantled today-what happened to that hop based varroa potion they were on about?
 #5635  by Patrick
 31 Jan 2020, 22:48
Paternal worry entirely natural and commendable Alfred.

I wasn’t being a smarta**e, winter losses are always a concern for all of us. Wintering also presents an opportunity to evaluate your stock and note characteristics you might wish to share. This might be something as simple as noting which colonies are flying when others do not or which come out of winter more strongly. Note the better ones and maybe use spare swarm cells if they raise them next year to requeen the ones that are less dynamic. Going queenless midwinter is just bad luck when it happens. The important thing is to work at why they demised, never be satisfied by “it was simply too cold” - I don’t believe that is ever true nowadays for much of the southern UK at least, not qualified. to comment northwards. My bees on single boxes and open floors had prolonged temps down to - 16 C in 2011 and all came out strong in spring. Simple cold may kill bees in Manitoba, but not In upstate Croydon.

Varroa, queen failure and starvation are all more likely and usually evidenced by what you can see left in the comb. Adult brood not emerged, tongues sticking out, piles of bees on the floor or not, adult bees with heads in cells etc all tell a story. Post pictures of deadout combs on here if you can. Reading combs is a modern underrated skill, everyone is so inexplicably obsessed with finding queens (despite already knowing one is a present as they have seen eggs) and admiring blocks of sealed brood. Nice, but bee porn.

Learn to see past the scurrying bees and look at the comb, for there lies true wisdom Grasshopper! 🙏

From what I remember, your losses last year were nothing to do with your lack of stewardship, it was just a hospital pass nucleus. You are doing great.
 #5662  by AdamD
 02 Feb 2020, 19:30
With bees drifting in and out of hives yesterday as it was warm enough, I hefted my colonies. A couple of nucs were light so they have been given some fondant. None dead yet!

And my stacked mini-nuc is still alive - although at the top of the stack so they have worked their way through almost all of their stores.
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