Today was the first decent-ish weather we’ve had in some time. No rain, and it got up to near 70 degrees. It was overcast (like always), but it was the first spring day of working in the garden in earnest. And since I can dig and plant when it’s drizzling or cool, I decided that I’d better get my keister in gear and open up the hives while I had a chance.
I have four hives on my property: one Top Bar, and three Warres. The Top Bar was abuzz with activity, though it had quite a bit of bee poop up and down the front of the hive. Bit of problem with moisture in the hive, I think…they’ve had a fair bit of feces on the front of the hive the past two winters. But they seem happy, and though I didn’t open up the hive, I watched for a while, and they’re hauling in pollen and generally active as can be.
These cells of capped honey look weirdly swollen. I discarded them. From Hive #1.
The three Warre hives live in the Northwest corner of my property. I had one little shorty with two boxes, and two taller ones with three boxes. I’d decided to get all three of them down to two boxes before winter, but well, the rainy season hit before I had a chance, and hit hard, and stuck around for months, so that never happened. Oh well. I did manage to harvest one box of honey back in October, from the strongest of my three Warre hives. Today I investigated all three of them, and discovered that two were dead. Not just “a little dead”, but dead dead. “This hive wouldn’t voom if you put four thousand volts through it! It’s bleedin’ demised! It’s not pining, it’s passed on. This hive is no more. It has ceased to be. It’s expired and gone to meet it’s maker. This is a late hive. It’s a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace.”*
More of the weirdly bubbled-out capped honey. You can see where brood would have been below it. From Hive #1.
The first one was no big shocker. The littlest hive just didn’t make it. It had never really recovered from the nightmare swarm capture. It never built up more than a single box of comb, plus a little bit. The ball of bees went from a giant swarm that wouldn’t even fit in a box down to a double handful fairly rapidly, then hovered there for several months. When I opened it up today, it was just…void. There was a little comb in the upper box, but not much. The lower box had no brood, no bees, and only a bit of capped honey. There were a handful of bees in the comb, buried deep in the cells, which makes it appear as if they starved. I’d have an easier time buying that if they weren’t a few cells over from perfectly reasonable capped honey. But really, it was a failure to thrive. I’d fed them fondant patties and even comb honey, but in vain. I cleaned out the boxes, put them back together, and will fill the hive again this spring.
Moldy, icky, empty ex-brood comb from the middle box of the dead hive. Hive #2.
I assessed the frames as I was dismantling the hive. I ended up burning the whole shebang, the bars and the comb and honey, and scouring out the inside of the hive itself. I’m sure they were done in by just being weak, but I don’t know, and I don’t want to pass on anything. Some of the honey in this hive looked…swollen. Usually capped honeycomb is flattish across the top of a cell. These bars had patches where the honey looked pooched outward, almost like a brood cell. I opened them up, and they are definitely honey, and it looked fine, but I’ve never seen this weird bubble-shaped honey cell, so I erred on the side of caution and upended the whole box into a fire. Sad.
This was a brood comb. The moldy spots are dead bees or brood in the cells. Ew. Hive #2.
The second hive was a bit more shocking to find empty. It had been my smallest swarm last year, and the first one I caught, but it had also been my strongest producer by far. I harvested a full box off it last October, and they left me with another full box when they died. They don’t appear to have starved, as there are no bees in the “tails out” position to indicate they were trying to sop up the last bits of honey. The bottom of the box was full of dead bees. I am tempted to blame moisture solely, as the inside of the bottom 2/3 of the hive was quite moldy, but the walls of the hive weren’t wet, and the quilt was still functional, so I don’t know. Seems more like the bees died, and because they weren’t keeping house or warming the hive, mold set in on the non-honey portions of the comb and on the dead bees.
More dead brood comb. None of those bees are alive. Hive #1.
I discarded the bottom two boxes in the same fiery manner as the contents of the first hive. The top box was full of mostly usable honey, no mold to speak of, and a few dead bees that had buried themselves in cells and died, then molded. Weird. I carved out the spots with the dead bees, and was left with most of a box full of what looked like perfectly normal capped comb honey, which I crushed up and filtered as normal, so not a total loss. Well, except for the fact that I’m down by 2/5 as far as hives go this year! (The Langstroth at my parents’ house is alive, and the next task is to renovate it and give them new frames and boxes, because I know the stuff they’re using is gnarly beyond belief.)
This is looking at the comb from the underside of the box. Hive #2.
I’ll be doing a little investigating into causes, but chalking it up mostly to a learning curve. There appears to be no dead brood to speak of, so I’m not worried about AFB or chalkbrood. Doubtful it was mites, as they haven’t been a problem. Moisture? Damaged queen in the first hive? I’m attending my first Clark County Bee Keeper’s Association meeting in a couple of weeks, we’ll see if they have anything to say on the matter (aside from calling me names for being an organic beekeeper….seems that’s not real popular in our area. *heh*) In the meantime, I’ll be renovating the Langstroth at my parents’ house, and then looking to restock my empty hives with more swarms in the next month or two.
*Apologies to Monty Python.
Something laid eggs on the capped honey. Ew. Hive #1
This was a brood comb, with honey stored above. Hive #1.
A cluster of dead bees, shrouded in mold. Hive #1.
