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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: MarilynMark Clark <wazazi.wa.binti AT gmail.com>
  • To: Orange County Bees <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] What did I do wrong?
  • Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 10:03:46 -0400

Dear Experienced Ones:

I had to move my apiary (3 hives), for reasons I will not go into here.  Things did not go well for one of them.

Background: One hive was a year old, new queen from last fall.  The other two are the result of a 50/50 split a couple weeks ago of an extremely strong hive which has been going strong since last Spring.  (The split did not stay 50/50 since apparently most the bees wandered back to the original hive/site.  I do not know which half has the queen, but both had eggs/larvae after the split.)  This original hive/site I will call the strong hive.

Day 1: For the move, I replaced the traditional inner covers with screened inner covers to provide more ventilation and to ensure full closure.  Then Friday after dark I fully closed the entrances.  All three hives have screened bottoms and consist of a full and two medium hive bodies.  Also, all three are in the process of being treated with Apistan.

Day 2: On Saturday about 4:00 PM the hives were loaded in a pick-up, driven about 4 miles to the new site (3.25 miles as the bee flies), and unloaded.  They were, of course, disturbed and not giving out a content buzz.  Quickly checked the hives through the inner cover by removing the outer cover for a few seconds.  The strong hive had the top solid of the frames covered with a thick layer of disturbed bees.  Not surprising I thought after being bucked around for the last hour.  Though what I could glean from the internet was to wait 72 hours (!) before opening, I decided to give them just a day.

Day 3: On Sunday again about 4:00 PM I opened the entrances.  The two non-strong hives (less-populated) came pouring out.  A few immediately came out of the strong hive.  I then replaced the screen inner covers with the traditional inner covers.  The two non-strong hives were fine.  But ...

Disaster!  When I took the outer cover off the strong file I could see that where, the day before, was covered with a thick layer of bees between the top of the frames and the screen, there now was a thick layer of dead bees.  Opening it up, I found in the top medium, the center 5 frames wax has melted and completely collapsed sending a cascade of melted wax, honey, and dead bees down into the lower two boxes.  It sees pretty obvious that the bees had "clustered" at the top of the hive and generated enough heat to kill the bees and melt the wax.  Whether it was shutting them in, moving them, a frustrated swarm(1), or some other cause I have no idea.

I did not have all my equipment at the new site, so I took the box off, cleaned out as many dead bees and collapsed comb as I could, and returned it to the hive.  I will go back today and replaced the destroyed  frames with ones with new foundation.  So now I may have two hives which are queenless.

What happened?  What did I do wrong?

Mark



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