Winter Loss


Bees all in one corner
It appears that my hive #1 that I started out with two years ago as the strongest hive has succumbed to starvation. I have read that the bees can get separated from plenty of honey (in this case a full medium above them) by eating their way into a corner. This is what looks like happened. I was out in the bee yard in February after a long snap of cold weather and rapped on the side of the hive to hear the familiar sound of bees and heard nothing. I kind of knew then that it was not good. It was finally 50 degrees today, our warmest day since back in November - I think. I went out to see what had happened. While my other hive buzzed with activity, along with pollen coming in, I tore into hive number one.
Bees in cells

I cleaned out the hive and and wondered if it had been ventilated well enough because it looked very mildewed. I also saw in one corner of the brood box a small but concerning amount of mold growing on two of the frames. I would be very interested in anyone who has experienced mold to comment on what is the best way to clear up this problem.

Blue mold
I felt bad as I cleared out the hive. I wonder if there was more that I should have done to create better air-flow. I did have the telescoping top propped up at one end with small shims, but maybe it wasn't enough.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trapout in Bergen - Video update

I didn't have any fresh eggs to place in the trapout, so I contacted Jill at www. bloomfieldhoney .com/ ‎. She was great and sold me a laying queen so I was able to get things all set up. Here is the video of what was done. I'm going to go over and remove the cone from the tree to allow the new established hive to rob-out the old hive in the tree. I assume there is a lot of honey left behind and I want this new hive to build up enough stores to make it through winter. With only one hive really established back at our apiary, we won't have much honey to harvest this year. Hopefully, if we continue to grow we will be able to split some hives in the future.
Read more

Craig Yerdon's Organically Managed Beekeeping Podcasts

Image
I have been really enjoying Craig's podcast about organic hive methods. A couple of things have been repeated enough times in just a few episodes to make me understand their importance. 1. I need to stop with the large cell foundation for reasons made very clear by Craig and his guests 2. I need to switch over to 8 frame mediums for all my hive boxes, again for various reasons. 3. I need to re-listen to the pod casts and write down a few things that will make me a better keeper. The things I am hearing help me to better understand the nature of bees. I always felt that if I had to keep the bees alive by artificial or pharmacological methods I would need to just get out of the hobby. It sounds like I can have success without introducing foreign materials into the hives - that's perfect... Link:  http://somdbeekeeper.com
Read more

Mid-Summer Honey

Image
The mid-summer harvest went well. Both hives seem to be building up at about the same rate. We were able to extract a medium super off each hive leaving four mediums for the bees. The last frame on each super had not been fully drawn out so I swapped them out for one of the empty frames on the supers I added. This is one of the reasons I will be switching over to eight frame mediums; those outside frames are hard to get drawn out. Also, in eight frame mediums the bees are less likely to eat themselves into a corner and not be able to move up into the honey stores.
Read more