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I checked on some of my bees today and am really frustrated. This is my 3 winter and I don't understand why I loose most of my bees. I can make booming hives in the spring and summer. In sept. and oct. my hives shrink from double deeps to clusters the size of softballs. This year I combined hives until I had 9 double deeps of bees with two supers of honey each. Now today I have two doubles that might make it and one five frame nuc that was leftovers and is booming. I would really like some ideas as to what Im doing wrong so I will have bees in the spring. today my two doubles are hanging on about softball size. Thanks for the help.

I'm not sure you are doing anything wrong this season. I'm losing more hives than ever before. I don't know if it was the poor summer that led to weaker clusters in the fall, ultimately leading to deadouts during this bitter cold snap.

I treat for mites in late summer/early fall, but was not nearly as aggressive as I needed to be this year in combining weak hives. One thing for sure is that if you don't have some sort of varroa mite control plan, you risk not having healthy populations to overwinter.

I suspect a number of my queens were not top quality going into winter. The rainy, cool spring and summer prevented a lot of my swarm control efforts. I think that hives that requeened after swarming may have had less than well mated queens because of weather delayed and weather shortened mating flights. Just a guess.

Given the variety of viruses, queen breeding issues, pesticides, etc., I think we are all in for a tougher time, especially when winters are like this one. I have never done winter preparations like wrapping hives, but this year may have been the year to do it.

I'm still stimulating brood rearing at my home hives, now just trying to get them stronger rather than getting them booming. I don't know that I will be able to take brood from them to boost other hives as had been my original winter/early spring plan.

I would like to know what other folks are seeing and if their bees are doing well, what they did last summer/early fall to prepare for winter.

First question.... Do you have russian bees. If so, a softball size cluster may be the norm.

Second... Today never got above 50 here. I would never open a hive below 60 to look at the cluster. Maybe you are loving them to death.

I don't know what kind my bees are. They are splits I have made from a swarm I got and Splits from a nuc I got from Jacobs. I have not been treating for mites. I think this year im going to start. This is three years in a row my hives start to fail in sept or oct. or they seem too. I don't think the majority are starving because they have a ton of honey on the hive. I had one that starved I think because it was too cold to move up to the next box. I have my hives on screen bottom boards, could that be the problem? I don't think Im having late swarms because most of the time I can find the marked queen in the dead out.

If you aren't treating for varroa, I'd say that's your problem.

As far as my hives go, I had a few that were weak going into late fall (mainly due to some robbing). Rather than combine them, I decided to roll the dice and see if they made it. To date, all of those weak hives died out (5). Not surprised.

As for the rest, I've lost 2 out of 19 so far. One appeared to abscond, and may have done that in the fall but I didn't see it. One died out suddenly, and I don't know why just yet. I checked them last weekend and there was a grapefruit size cluster. Came back this weekend to give them some sugar candy reserves, and they were gone. Plenty of honey. But maybe it got too cold for them to move sideways.

I've been putting hard candy on all the hives, and they have been eating it up. Going to keep it going as long as they are taking it. A few hives I'm feeding pollen sub to, to get ready to rear some queens (only 4 of the 17 I have left).

I've had a couple of hives starve in place with loads of honey nearby. The cluster was too small to cover the brood and reach food stores. The bees would not leave the brood and walk 2 inches to honey. If the cluster had been a little larger, the bees would have been over the brood and over some honey. Bees could have passed honey among themselves and may have moved off honey some to get condensation if they needed water to thin the stores.

Got to do a quick check on my hives today.
I went into winter with 12 hives and two nucs.
The nucs did not make it and there are two hives that are dead outs. One hive was an early summer swarm that did well in a nuc box but did not build up after I put it in a 10 frame. Of course the weather did not help any. The other dead out was my hive of Waynes Bees that I have never treated for the 3 or 4 years that they have been here. They did have a high mite load last fall and hind sight says yep should have treated. It should also be noted that they have requeened themselves over the years so the Waynes Bees Genetics may have been lost and it should have been treated like any other hive.
Three of the 12 hives are in an outyard near Guilford County High School and they are doing well, SO FAR.
I like using the mountain camp method and I put a sugar block on the top bars as well. I treated the hives with MAQS last fall.
That’s a snap shot of the hives; we’ll see how many are left when spring arrives.

Ski, do you think spring isn't coming in tonight and tomorrow?

I haven't taken inventory on mine yet but I did clean up 2 dead outs about a week ago. Both had too low populations to survive the winter.

Thanks for not treating. The queens that don't carry the Wayne's traits need to be let go. If I am successful at raising some this spring, I will give you a replacement nuc.

Mike,
Its wishful thinking that this is the last cold snap before spring. Usually gets nice for a few weeks in February then we get another surprise dip in temperatures.

Wally,
A nuc of Waynes Bees would be great.

This year I have made sure they had plenty of sugar water until they didn't take any more, large hive and a small one (I thought this one, small hive would have died already)
The large is Wayne bees I bought off Wally and the small is a split off that one, so no treatment at all. The hives started getting light by the grabbing the back of the hive and tipping so I went ahead and made some sugar bricks. I lady in WA state stated to put the sugar bricks right over the cluster so they could get to it and if they didn't because it got to cold the slight condensation would help them by dripping the sugar water on them and they could clean it off themselves without moving much.
I have screened bottoms and last year I left them open, this year with cold weather I slid a thin board under to help keep the warmth in and I also wrapped them with black tar paper but left the top entrance open to ventilate, I've added more sugar bricks as needed and as of yesterday both hives had bees going in and out.
Waiting to see if this works out???

My hive has a screened bottom. With the freezing temperatures we're having, now I am wondering if I should've used a thin board under the screen as herbcoop mentioned. What do some of you seasoned beeks recommend? Thanks, in advance, for any info posted.

WannaBee1 wrote:My hive has a screened bottom. With the freezing temperatures we're having, now I am wondering if I should've used a thin board under the screen as herbcoop mentioned. What do some of you seasoned beeks recommend? Thanks, in advance, for any info posted.

I could be wrong but I think Wally uses solid bottoms all year long?

[quote="ski"]Mike,
Its wishful thinking that this is the last cold snap before spring. Usually gets nice for a few weeks in February then we get another surprise dip in temperatures.

I was sort of hoping the next few days would be it but it looks like another front coming in on Sunday and bringing rain so the girls will be stuck inside again

Checked on my hives yesterday. I didn't go in them just opened the top. I lost two more hives. The only thing I have left is a 5 frame nuc. They seem to be expanding and ready to move into a ten frame deep.
How long can I wait to move them. Can I do it this time of year. It would be great to have done it yesterday because it will make it easier to feed them.

If it were me I would put another 5 frame nuc super on top of the one you have with five frames out of your dead out. They will grow faster that way than in a 10 frame deep. Heat goes up not out. If you don't have a 5 frame super you could use a 10 F deep and cut 2 boards to drop in down to line up with the side walls of your nuc box. May need to stabilize some way so it won't tip over. A big word in beekeeping "improvise" and make it work.