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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Chris Abernethy <cabernet AT chrisabernethy.com>
  • To: Phil DeGuzman <phil.deguzman AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] One hive dead, one hive thriving
  • Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2013 10:57:33 -0500

Phil,

I have the same situation with my single first-year hive.

--Chris

On Feb 27, 2013, at 7:41 PM, Phil DeGuzman wrote:

> I have two first-year hives side by side (I started them last April so this
> is the first winter). I fed them right up until November when both hives
> stopped taking food. I did a light check on them about every two weeks
> (opened the top cover and looked for signs of life) through
> December/January/February. Last weekend I went in for my first deep
> inspection of the year. One hive was very active, lots of action in the
> brood chamber and workers galore throughout the hive. Everything looked
> better than I had expected.
>
> However, my second hive looked like...well...it looked like what I've heard
> CCD hives look like. There were no living bees in the entire colony, only
> about 200 dead bees throughout the hive. There was plenty of pollen and
> honey (heck there were two fully capped frames that we went ahead and
> extracted). There are still two mediums of fully drawn comb with a mix of
> honey, pollen, some brood. The creepiest thing was two gianQuestion 2:t
> roaches in the bottom of the brood chamber surrounded by the heads and
> tails of a few dozen bees.
>
> Question 1: has anyone else seen this- a seemingly well stocked hive with
> no bees remaining? No signs of carcasses in/around the hives. No slime,
> fungus or foulbrood signs. I saw a couple of signs of mites, but nothing
> excessive. All the CCD documentaries describe hives that are empty of bees
> and no carcasses...could I be victim to that? I thought perhaps they might
> have swarmed, but there were no signs of queen cups or anything like that.
>
> Question 2: Dare I try a split off of my healthy hive? Should I wait and
> try a new package in April? EIther way, is it a good idea to reuse the
> drawn comb and capped honey in the dead hive box? Concerned that if there
> is some ailment that affected the bees that it might transfer to any new
> bees I introduced.
> I would like to have two hives to help pollenate the orchard and
> garden...and as insurance in case one hive dies overwinter.
> --
> "I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can
> do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do
> something that I can do.” - Helen Keller
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