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  • From: Just Bee <marty AT justbeenc.com>
  • To: MarilynMark Clark <wazazi.wa.binti AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: Orange County Bees <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] What did I do wrong?
  • Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 10:50:15 -0400

Hey Mark,

Sorry to hear about the frustration and loss. Several of us have went through
things like this at one point or another. The best part is sharing it...not
feeling like we must hide it. So good info to hear and share even though you
have losses.

First Q's.
We're the hives at the original spot in more shade than their new home?

I ask because of 2 learning situations I went through. First being a hive I
bought that was in semi shade and when placed in my new sunny yard...2 center
top box frames melted down and the honey robbing commenced! Secondly, because
I have hives on roof tops I have noticed a clear difference in wax thickness.
Both in structure and in cappings. Makes sense as the hotter(sunnier) hives
need more wax structure. That might explain the wax issue.

Idea on more upset bees. I'm totally guessing here but maybe the treatment in
the hive and it's strength (start date) played a role. A lot of treatments
force the bees out more...especially near the beginning. So you may have had
more bees trying to escape the treatment (down in the brood area). They would
have went up to escape fumes. IF that was the case it got worse in the heat
and with more bees moving up. More bees up too means less ventilation. That
may have triggered more fanning and spread of heat from the cluster. Both of
which could also played a role in the wax melting.

I'd only suggest in the future to not have bees being moved and confined
while treating. That's a perfect world senerio not the one it sounds like you
are in.

Lastly, yes if you do a split and leave them both in the same original yard
the one hive in the original location will always have more bees. The
foragers from the original hive will return from flights to their learned
home. The queen could still be in either. This is why I always recommend
moving the split after doing the 50/50 split.

Good luck moving forward. Try and clean up what you can to reduce the robbing
that will be coming.
Marty




Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 14, 2014, at 10:03 AM, MarilynMark Clark <wazazi.wa.binti AT gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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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