Mailing list for the Person County Beekeepers Association, Roxboro, NC

[James Latimer <pipesnc AT live.com>]

Donna,
I have been participating in the Colony loss study by Bee Informed. 
http://beeinformed.org/results/colony-loss-2014-2015-preliminary-results/
(from the website)

Beekeepers do not only lose colonies in the winter but also throughout the summer, sometimes at significant levels. To quantify this claim of non-winter colony mortality of surveyed beekeepers, we have included summer and annual colony losses since 2010/2011. In the summer of 2014 (April – October), colony losses surpassed winter losses at 27.4% (totalsummer loss). This compares to summer losses of 19.8% in 2013. Importantly, commercial beekeepers appear to consistently lose greater numbers of colonies over the summer months than over the winter months, whereas the opposite seems true for smaller-scale beekeepers. Responding beekeepers reported losing 42.1% of the total number of colonies managed over the last year (total annual loss, between April 2014 and April 2015). This represents the second highest annual loss recorded to date.

There seems to be a trend of Colonies being lost over the Summer.  If my colonies are light, less than 50 pounds, I feed them.  I try to monitor if they are bringing in pollen and nectar of there own.  But even if they are, if the hive is light I feed.  I do not have extra supers on for honey until they have their own food stores.  So I am not feeding when I am collecting for honey.  Currently I have collected what honey I expect to get for this year and have noticed the hives getting lighter.  I am feeding.  I am expecting them to be able to take care of themselves as we near September, but if not I will feed.

(good chart of plant calendar for Western NC, note no nectar flow after mid-July)
http://www.mcdowellhoneybees.org/2013%20Files/WNCFloweringPlantsCalendar.pdf

Jamie

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Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2015 18:33:32 +0000
From: donnasteen AT yahoo.com
To: pipesnc AT live.com
Subject: Re: [PCBA] What happened- Any thoughts on why?

James,

I appreciated your post.

So does this mean we should expect to feed our bees every summer?

Donna S.

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From: James Latimer <pipesnc AT live.com>
To: Janet Marron <johnsonmarron AT gmail.com>; "person_county_beekeepers_association AT lists.ibiblio.org" <person_county_beekeepers_association AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2015 1:57 PM
Subject: Re: [PCBA] What happened- Any thoughts on why?

Janet,
I have not started a new hive from a package.  I started 2 hives from nucs last year.  The nucs came with 5 frames of drawn comb each.  In a 10 frame hive, the other frames were foundation.  The nucs had a good mix of bees and a variety of frames; some with new larva, some with brood ready to hatch, some with honey and pollen.

This year I started 2 new hives with the queens from the 2 hives I started last year.  I moved the queens and a good mix of 4 frames each to 2 new 10 frames boxes.  Remaining frames were wax foundation.  Each of the new hives had a point where the queen ran out of room to lay and the production of wax was slow, but once the first set of bees that had been laid in the new hives started to hatch wax production took off.  one hive was not patient with the queen running out of room to lay and superseded her.  That hive took longer to start producing wax, again due to the lack of young bees.  That hive stayed busy collecting nectar and pollen until fresh brood started to hatch.  Now they are drawing out comb.  I use a top feeder on the new hives and during nectar dearths, they hold 2 gallons and I try not to let them run dry.   

Sorry, I can not safely say what happened to your hives, but can tell you what I have done successfully.  Based on the way the hive needs young bees and nectar to produce wax, I am thinking starting a hive with package bees may require more drawn comb to exist in the hive from the start.  The queen needs places to lay the brood and the foragers need places to store food.  There may have been enough space in the hives but not enough ready to move into and use (drawn comb).

Maybe someone with experience starting new hives from a package could chime in.

Jamie

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on Tue, 14 Jul 2015 13:00:14 -0400, Janet  <johnsonmarron AT gmail.com> wrote:

Hi-

So would the solution have been to have the packages in place earlier?  Was this a timing problem?  I agree with you that there wasn't a correct mix of bees for success and protection of the colony from robbing.

Thanks so much,

Janet

On Tue, Jul 14, 2015 at 11:51 AM, James Latimer <pipesnc AT live.com> wrote:

Janet,
Not sure why the colony failed but I can help with the wax question.  The colony failure could have been for a multitude of reasons; Queen health, hive health, not enough food (nectar and pollen), bad weather patterns. 

What I have noticed with my hives, there are 2 things that seem to be necessary to produce wax, nectar and young bees.  Nectar is needed to feed the young bees which are needed to produce wax.  From what I have learned but not observed, some older bees can start to produce wax in emergencies.  If a new hive has not had any brood hatched yet it may not have enough young bees to produce a significant amount of wax.  I have found that wax production takes off as the queens first set of eggs are hatching, after 21 days.  If you started the hive at the end of April, that first set of bees from your queen would start to appear toward the end of May.  Where my hives are at in Durham, we started to have a dearth in June, and it has been a bit dry until recently, if they were not feed enough nectar to produce wax you may not have seen much.  It takes 8 times the nectar to produce wax as it does to produce honey. 

Without places for the queen to lay (drawn comb), the hive may not have produced the right mix of workers for success.

Jamie

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Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2015 17:47:43 -0400
From: johnsonmarron AT gmail.com
To: person_county_beekeepers_association AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [PCBA] What happened- Any thoughts on why?

Ok my bees are gone.  They struggled from the get go. 

I bought two new packages which arrived in late April. Neither hive drew out any wax despite being fed 1:1 sugar water. I installed the packages on a deep with a medium super on each because it was so late in the season I wanted them to have lots of room. They stayed in one super which had wax drawn by last year's colonies (which froze over the winter- my guess is that the bee ball's were too small). There was plenty of food left in the division board feeders but with dead bees floating in both feeders. 

Thoughts on why they didn't make any wax? 

Thanks for your help.

Janet

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