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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.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 14:28:46 -0400

Mark,

This is a great story. We don't learn anything from our successes, just our failures.

It is clear "what" happened -- the bees overheated and died. It isn't completely obvious "why" one hive died and the others didn't, but if any of them were to die it would be the most-populous one. I guess all we can do is work backwards and state the obvious: they didn't have enough ventilation with respect to the ambient temperature, the colony respiration and the amount of time they were cooped up. This should be a key concern anytime someone moves bees. Cross-country commercial bee transporters mist their hives with water every now and then to prevent over-heating, as well as use screened closures or no closures (netting the entire load).

Clearly the Apistan treatment didn't have anything to do with it since Apistan isn't a fumigant type treatment and doesn't have temperature restrictions, other than using it when the temperature is warm enough for the bees to be out of cluster. So don't agonize over that.

I don't know where the "internet wisdom" came up with the 72-hour wait thing. I suspect that it is a misinterpretation of some other practice that somebody half-heard and half-understood, and then it was repeated over and over so "it must be true." It doesn't make any sense with respect to bee biology and I've never seen qualified experts recommend it. Bees enclosed in a box don't forget where they think their home is. In fact bees can overwinter for months and when the temperature warms back up they fly back to the water sources they trained on the previous fall. They have tiny brains but those brains are devoted to remembering locations.

When I move bees, I close them up at night, immediately put them on the truck, move them to their new spot, remove the entrance closure and wave goodbye. No waiting is required before releasing them. I suspect that if you had done likewise you wouldn't have had time to experience the problem you had, good ventilation or not.

I wouldn't count those other 2 queens out yet. I've never lost a queen in a move, unless you count the time I squashed the queen as I was making up an observation hive to take to the zoo, back in the days before they had a permanent exhibit. I didn't realize I had done so at the time. All day long the little kids asked, "where's the queen?" and I told them, "I know she's in there somewhere...." Only when I got home did I find her smashed in the box.

Randall Austin




On Mon, 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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