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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: kate demayo <kdemayo AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] bee packages and dead bees
  • Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:11:50 -0400

Kate,

Going through the mail is rough business. If the package gets too hot, too cold or too confined (no ventilation) it can kill bees. What you've described does sound like an unfortunate amount of loss, but at least they aren't all dead. If you've still got "enough" bees in both hives, things should even out fine over time. Keep an eye on how quickly one develops versus the other (that's the advantage of having more than one hive!). Once they are both well established, you can even things up a bit by moving brood frames from the stronger hive to the weaker one, if it looks like you need to.

Randall Austin

kate demayo wrote:
l2zbdf70a471004130933pd633dbdq7fad4d417ada293a AT mail.gmail.com" type="cite">Hey all,
I wanted to check in with folks about dead bees in the bee packages. we installed two packages on saturday and one was noticeably more lively than the other. when i installed the less lively packaged it seemed like there was a mess of dead bees in there. i could not really tell what was going on then, because all the live bees were on top of them. i just went to check on my bees and at the bottom of the hive where i dumped my package is a whole lot of dead bees, in front of the hive as well.
the bees that made it are busy drawing comb and trying to get the queen out, i'm happy to report! 
i know that it's normal to have some dead bees in your package but i wanted to see if this sounds normal to folks and what your experience is. 
thanks so much!
kate



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