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  • What are your losses?

  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #6189  by Chrisbarlow
 05 Apr 2020, 18:59
I reckon I've lost about 20% this year.

Some I reckon were avoidable, I lost some nucs because their entrances got blocked and I Believe that's why they died. Extremely annoyed about these. I think this year I'll be adding 2nd entrances in my nucs further up the box

Nothing starved, excellent but some did need some fondant feeding (nucs only though)

A couple appears to have developed a drone laying queen

Of what did survive, there is a mix of strong to weak. One thing I didn't do as much as normal last year was feed pollen sub and I believe this has affected spring strength... Maybe . I will up my pollen sub feeding this autumn. I was being stingy last autumn, false economy I believe.

Some just appeared to have withered to nothing.

Some apiaries did better than others. 1 apiary had lots of weak nucs whilst other apiaries , survival was much higher but also boxes stronger. Is this a micro climate issue or a varroa/disease issue.

Some colonies are ridiculously strong, bees covering every frame in double brood boxes but some weak on a frame of two of bees ( some equalisation will be happening)

This is my quick autopsy report I suppose
 #6192  by AdamD
 05 Apr 2020, 20:48
What did they get blocked with? If it was bees, then there was already something wrong perhaps?

All mine OK - except a supercedure queencell in one this week which I removed, so the queen isn't going to last very long is my guess. Looking back at my notes from last year, she was late-mated and an attemp at supercedure was started until I intervened with my hive tool, so she has done well to keep going this long.
 #6193  by Chrisbarlow
 05 Apr 2020, 21:26
AdamD wrote:
05 Apr 2020, 20:48
What did they get blocked with? If it was bees, then there was already something wrong perhaps?
Yes. they were nucs with a mouse guards on. I suspect the entrance wasn't large enough
 #6194  by Patrick
 05 Apr 2020, 23:39
Went through bees for the first time today to find queens and mark / clip
them. By only clipping queens at the following first spring inspection each year, anything unclipped, unmarked and laying worker brood can only be a 2019 born and mated Queen. Anything already clipped must be a 2018 or older queen. So if the paintbmark has rubbed off you still know how old your queens are . Another minor benefit of clipping. The first inspection is my favourite and I do enjoy having a reason to look for queens.

Most good, a few booming with great brood patterns. Found my likely queen breeding colony, it was one of two based on last years performance and has overwintered well. Quite a lot of drones about already.

After two consecutive years of incredibly low swarming incidence, and family issues last year with no time for queen rearing, I am now carrying a few three year queens and they are definitely on wind down. Not too worried about honey this year so will concentrate on getting colonies improved for next year.

Only technically lost one, which has a drone laying queen which is quite unusual for me. The box has plenty of workers but also about a third emerged drones as well as plenty of drone brood. No evidence of multiple eggs so looked for a queen and found a lovely unclipped and unmarked one, presumably was too early and just didn’t get mated. Bees not very happy with matters and let me know in the usual way...
 #6196  by AndrewLD
 06 Apr 2020, 07:59
AdamD wrote:
05 Apr 2020, 20:48
What did they get blocked with? If it was bees, then there was already something wrong perhaps?

All mine OK - except a supercedure queencell in one this week which I removed, so the queen isn't going to last very long is my guess. Looking back at my notes from last year, she was late-mated and an attemp at supercedure was started until I intervened with my hive tool, so she has done well to keep going this long.
All my five hives have come out of winter but two were much stronger than the others and of other three, two are only just building up and one looks dodgy to me (the only one I had to give fondant to?).
Adam - why have you culled the supercedure cells twice now? Did they not have any drones or have none now - is that why you are putting it off? Interested to know your reasons.
 #6198  by AdamD
 06 Apr 2020, 09:37
Andrew, the queen was very late last year - a September mating - so the chance of decent weather was not good so I thought that I would allow her to take her chance. Same this spring, for me it's too early to consider mating although I have drone brood in some colonies now. However I live near the coast (2 miles) and it's generally several degrees cooler here during the day than inland; so it can be 20 degrees in Norwich, say, and 15 or 16 on the coast with a sea breeze, so it's too cold for mating. Very frustrating when I have queens ready to fly!
(Mick will understand this!).

Chris, understood. I guess the ideal entrance would be a vertical slot 8 mm wide. It would keep mice out, allow the bees to fly and would not get blocked by dead bees.

I have to admit that I haven't used mouseguards for some years and don't consider I have a problem with them. (Or I should say that I haven't had a major problem YET!). Although this year a mouse made a home in a super under a brood box for a while so a few frames will need new foundation fitted. The hive in question was on a pallet and an easy walk for a mouse to get into. Maybe the warmth fro the mouse helped the colony a little bit? :lol:
 #6200  by AndrewLD
 06 Apr 2020, 12:12
AdamD wrote:
06 Apr 2020, 09:37
Andrew, the queen was very late last year - a September mating - so the chance of decent weather was not good so I thought that I would allow her to take her chance. Same this spring, for me it's too early to consider mating although I have drone brood in some colonies now.
Very interesting, so the bees were quick to see that she was duff and would I be right in thinking that they would have run with two queens until the new one was "approved", then the duff one would just disappear....
I had something like that in one of my NUC's, a bought-in queen (looked like she had been travelling for some time by the dead workers in the cage and consumed fondant) was clearly not acceptable because the bees immediately built a supercedure cell and later I found a new queen busy whilst the rejected queen was confined to the floor by a couple of workers. A waste of £40 :(
 #6202  by Patrick
 06 Apr 2020, 13:08
I have seen similarly with bought in queens Andrew.

Hence my irritation with the one line response often thrown at beginners “you need to requeen”. How many of them have actually done it rather than just read a book that says that’s what you should do?

Buying bought in queens is often not as simple as “just add queen”.
 #6204  by Chrisbarlow
 06 Apr 2020, 14:26
Patrick wrote:
06 Apr 2020, 13:08
Buying bought in queens is often not as simple as “just add queen”.
Very true indeed.
 #6205  by AdamD
 06 Apr 2020, 14:27
AndrewLD wrote:
06 Apr 2020, 12:12
AdamD wrote:
06 Apr 2020, 09:37
Andrew, the queen was very late last year - a September mating - so the chance of decent weather was not good so I thought that I would allow her to take her chance. Same this spring, for me it's too early to consider mating although I have drone brood in some colonies now.
Very interesting, so the bees were quick to see that she was duff and would I be right in thinking that they would have run with two queens until the new one was "approved", then the duff one would just disappear....
You never know with bees ....
They might have gotten rid of the poor queen once a fresh new virgin was around. Or they might have kept both until the virgin was mated. In either case the chance of mating was slim.

I have had two queens in a hive in spring. In this case, the old one that was still laying worker eggs on one frame and an unmated one laying drone eggs on the other. (Only two frames had brood when I checked). I left them to it, thinking that bees know best. Well, they didn't and chucked out the mated one a week or two later!.