Mourning

Looks like the bees are dead.

We fed them during the worst of the summer dearth and quit when they had mostly quit taking it.   After about 3 weeks we started feeding again as we saw goldenrod drying up.  But, apparently, it was too late.

There was a time when there were so many bees we were afraid of a late summer swarm.  Now there are practically none.  There is nectar or sugar syrup visible in cells and capped pollen. But, almost no bees and the sugar syrup hasn’t gone down any for about 3 days.

Did we not feed enough?

Were they poisoned by the corn growing down the road?

Do we try again next year or sell our gear thinking this area is bad for honey bees?

4 responses to “Mourning”

  1. Boud Avatar
    Boud

    Awwwww. Were they supposed to kind of sleep through the winter? I don’t know the habits of bees. But I bet that after the winter you’ll be raring to try it again. After all,you have other bee people in your region doing okay.

    Reply
  2. Kitty Avatar
    Kitty

    They do quiet down when it’s cold, but there have to be enough bees to huddle together to stay warm.

    We have a few months to decide what the next step is.

    Reply
  3. Sam Smith Avatar
    Sam Smith

    I have seen hives dry up like this, sometimes the queen just fails and they fail to re-queen, then what happens is the workers take a while to die off, it will look like there is a colony for a while too then when you go to inspect nothing, similar to ccd, but not poisoning just natural failure. I usually advise keeping two or three hives. So then if you loose one hive to natural selection you wont feel like you got wiped out, also helps to make nice queens since you have more drones. I also advise trying vertical hives (I always had heavy losses with my tbh’s) along with your other current hives. All this to say I would give it another year. A couple of hives are low maintenance enough.

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  4. Kitty Avatar
    Kitty

    Sadly, there are 2 hives that appear to be failing. There was more activity and were more bees evident in the warmth of late afternoon.

    We’ll keep feeding whoever is there until we’re sure there are none. Then decide where to get new stock.

    Reply

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