Mr. Neil emailed that he had been by the hives and that Kelli was silent. I emailed back, “You mean Kitty, right?”
If you recall, Kitty was in a small cluster and the cold was probably going to kill her. The Kelli hive was strong and loud. No, he meant Kelli. I hoped that he was either seriously jet-lagged, had excessive ear wax and ear hair, or maybe minor hearing loss of his punk band days.
Non Birding Bill and I headed out to the hives before I left for Indy to get the down low. I put my ear to the Kelli hive. It was quiet…too quiet. I wondered what could have happened, she was so healthy, did we finally get colony collapse? We wouldn’t know without opening the hive. It was about to rain at any moment, so we decided to take the hive apart and take it back to the garage and inspect what could have been the problem. However I soon as I opened the ceiling, I found a small cluster of live bees.
At first I was hopeful to see signs of life. But wen I looked closer, I could see that the cluster was just too small. It barely covered one frame. She had plenty of food to see her through, but one more hard core cold snap was probably going to do this hive in–which is entirely possible even though the calendar reads spring.
What went wrong?
I think I have my answer on the front of the hive. Look at all that bee excrement, I think there’s a bit of bee dysentery going on. I think the Kelli girls had a case of nosema, but I can’t really say that unless I send in a few bees for testing. Bees hold in their poop all winter and then let it go in the spring. They’ll go on cleansing flights on warm days to relieve themselves. They shouldn’t go all over the front of the hive. When I give the bees their fall feeding, we put a little antibiotic to prevent nosema. Neither hive ate too much of our homemade nectar, which I didn’t think about too much since they both had plenty of food. Kind of regretting that now, but then again, how does one forcefeed a bee so it will take her medicine.
So.
Looks like we’ll be starting with all new hives this summer and no dividing of older hives.
We were planning on a total of six hives this summer, but that was based on four new packages and splitting Kelli. Since we will only have four, I’m thinking about trying some Russian bees. We’ve been using the Minnesota Hygenic bees (Italians) based on their “hygienic” behavior of cleaning out brood cells when they sense something wrong. But the more I read about the Russian bee and how it seems to resist varroa mite infestation a bit and can take a hard winter, I’m thinking I’d like to give some a go.
Any blog readers know someone who raises and sells Russian bees in the US and would be willing to send a package to Minnesota?
Aww man! I’m sorry you guys. Y’all work so hard this has to be sorely disappointing.
Oh geez. How rotten. And this was the healthy-seeming hive, huh? (I’d got it in my head that Kelli was the one that got wet back in January.) No one can say you didn’t do all you could.
For some reason it never occurred to me that bees poop. But of course they do. Everything does. Doh.
Good news is, nosema poop is dark, dark brown, not golden. It has a different spatter pattern, too (Sorry, TMI?), not the discrete streaks of a healthy bee. The bee poop you are seeing is the result of a perfectly natural and healthy cleansing flight that the bees take on a warmish day in winter.
Bad news, you’ll want to figure out what DID kill them. And that’s not enough bees to form a warm enough cluster to get through the coming cold snap. If it were me, and I had a nice clean bee shed, I’d move them inside and when my packages came, pick out the old queen and do a newspaper release (that’s still enough bees to ball the new queen).
Thanks for the clarification, Kathy.
I know we worried about Nosema and whether or not we would have to burn the frames. But yeah, I’m curious why such a strong, busy and healthy hive suddenly went dead.
That’s also good (and kinda gross) to know that all that poop is normal.
So sorry to hear about your hive! Looking into a nearly-dead bee hive is such an unhappy task. I get so attached, I’ve never managed to do it without a few tears.
But to answer your question, I’ve had Russians shipped to Minnesota before, from a place called Dixie Bee Supply. The guy selling the bees was a bit…difficult, and his prices were kinda high-he only ships Nucs, not packages-but the bees were fantastic. Tough as nails, too-we didn’t have any mite problems.
In short, I would order from him again, but my new hive is in the middle of St. Paul, and while the Russians were friendly enough for a hive on a farm, they don’t put up with as much foolishness as the Italians I’d had before, and I don’t want to worry about someone’s kid getting stung any more than necessary.
Here’s the website, but feel free to email me if you want more details about the bees, or about ordering. My post office was not best pleased with nucs in their back room, but we all survived.
http://www.geocities.com/fatbeeman/
Good luck, I hope this helps!
You should be able to contact these people about finding a Russian Bee supplier. Last year, I got a package (as opposed to a nuc) of Russian last year from Long Creek Apiaries: (http://www.longcreekapiaries.com) This year I trying nucs.
Oops, I forgot the other link:
http://www.russianbreeder.org
Poor girls.
I love the bee stories. Joy and heartache and honey.
It does look like nosema indeed. All the other hives could catch it too. You’d have to disinfect the hives and tools very thoroughly before using them again.
I’m sorry to hear about your bees. I lost both of my hives this winter too.
I’m sorry to hear about that
However, I’m glad to hear you’re going to keep going despite all this. I love reading about your beekeeping! I might get a chance at it this summer myself, if they decide to try again at the farm for which I volunteer.
There’s nothing much better than good honey. I may have to see if I can find a good source for clover honey, my favorite, though that from orange groves is good too. Good luck with them!
Hi Sharon,
So, so sorry. I lost all my hives this winter also. It is brutal and I can barely stand the responsibility. That said, though, Cute Husband has given me permission to add 3 to our LoveNest! Delivery is next week~ Russians…. we always do Russians.
L&W