They all died this winter.

Comment

Comment by Dennis A. Muirhead on March 19, 2020 at 8:59am

There was lots of honey still in both hives. My largest hive was in its third year with a large number of bees. I powered both hives with power sugar and fed with a 50/50 by volume sugar water.  Lost some bees in the leaking sugar water, which made a real sticky mess. The older hive still had a large amount of pollen. Neither hive had a problem with wax worms, which was a surprise, based on past experience with older hives. Looks like the bees died from the cold and not being able to get in a tight cluster near food.  There was pollen in the large lower super , but most of the honey was in the highest small supper. Most of the dead bees were found at the bottom of the hive. The bees in the large hive were from a swarm I captured two years ago. The some of the bees in the small hive arrived there by themselves in the spring and later I added two supers from the old hive.

 

I have had bees for many years when we lived in the Manzano Mountains, where we had lots of snow and colder winters, than here in the city. Those first bees were Buckfast bees from Weaver in Texas.

 

Thanks for the come back,

Dennis

Comment by Abq Beeks on March 18, 2020 at 10:40pm

Hi Dennis, 

I am so sorry that your bees dies over the winter. Can you share some information on your hives and what happened? 

Take care,

Birdie