Winter losses 2013/14

Those of you that don't mind sharing, it would be interesting to have an overview of what losses we experienced last winter. Divided very simplistically into those with more or less than 5 hives. Drone laying queens count as a loss.

I've done these the past three years, results here

2012/13 http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=22931 (228 participants)

2011/12 http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=16415 (213)

2010/11 http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=9654 (217)


I'll include the last three results in brackets by each option.

While some are diving in to their hives merrily, many are still delaying inspection so I will leave this open for a few weeks.

I will start the ball rolling.
29 colonies going into winter, 3 losses all drone layers.
Have entered info above.

7 colonies taken into winter.
No losses or drone layers
Data entered above

2 losses both DLQ

27 responses to date, and only 2 have had more than 10% losses. Best overwintering for about 10 years by the looks of it.

Twelve colonies going into winter at the home apiary but one was a nuc containing a queen meant for one of the other hives with a late queen loss, which due to a miscalculation in QC age ended up with a couple of emergency queens rattling around so left to its own devices - that one dwindled and died last month - nosemic according to my bee-sitter. all others fine so although I'm chalking one loss it's 'proper' queen is still alive in another nuc! although I haven't had any reports of my one hive at the association apiary.

7 in 7 out
last year 2 in 1 out

All 3 survived for me - think not only the mild winter, but also last years good summer meaning less badly mated queens probably contributed to much better survival rates all round.

No losses. This has been the mildest winter since I started beekeeping in 2010..# (we had 3 subsequent winters where we saw -16C overnight - or lower and in 2011 we had an entire week with nights under -17C).

Indeed, we have had only two or three light snowfalls and seven to eight nights of (light) frost..

LOTS of insects in our garden: butterflies, ladybirds - and lots and lots of midges. Must be the sudden stopping of using neonics- oh I forgot - no arable fields for miles.. so it must be the warm winter. Masses of frogspawn as well..(none last year due to the late spring).

Not seen any queen wasps though - last year wiped out many colonies.

LOTS of queen bumble bees.

First inspection yesterday revealed a probable failed supercedure so that's 25%.
Test frame will tell. If no queen I'll unite them with one of the others. It was my only AS last year and the frames are newish so that's one less Bailey to do.

Still looking like the best winter for ages. Need some more responders to be comparable with previous years.

But why such a shift from high losses to low losses? Here are my thoughts. Interested what others think....

Long spells of good weather in 2013 from May to October. Resulting in very few dodgy queen matings. Queen failure therefore a bit of a rarity this winter. (In recent years it's been probably half of our losses).

Late spring of 2013 was bad for the bees but worse for varroa. Lack of pollen led to long brood breaks so varroa numbers were low last spring. We also had lots of colonies taking a brood break last September which made our autumn Apiguard treatment highly effective.

Mild winter has allowed bees to fly regularly so nosema kept well below damage threshold.

This time last year I had two full colonies and my obs hive.

I split all of them and aquired two swarms later in the year.

Queen in one split failed, so united with split from obs hive and put into full hive. That queen is now 4 years old, unless she was superseded later last year.

Swarms are still in nuc boxes and doing ok, but one not as good as the other, and I wonder if that might be because the box is made with thinner ply. Just a thought.
All four main colonies went into winter with a super on and are all getting on fine. The obs hive looks as if it will soon need to be split.
No feeding and no treatment to any of them.
To date in 4 years I have lost one colony and 1 nuc.

Not to be overlooked - a good year for pollen stores.

Good stocks of pollen available for the last two brood cycles before winter.
This means stronger more resilient winter bees that are less likely to succumb to other stressors.

Also having adequate pollen stores available to initiate spring brood rearing and sustain this brood until fresh pollen becomes consistently available.

18 into the winter - no losses.

United down to 12 colonies and 3 nucs now.

sipa said:

Not to be overlooked -

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Arguably the most important factor.

Personally, I blame neonics

Monsieur Abeille said:

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You have a pm.

Pete D said:

You have a pm.

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Hi Pete - I'd replied to it, let me know (via pm) if it needs a resend

jenkinsbrynmair said:

Twelve colonies going into winter at the home apiary but one was a nuc containing a queen meant for one of the other hives with a late queen loss, which due to a miscalculation in QC age ended up with a couple of emergency queens rattling around so left to its own devices - that one dwindled and died last month - nosemic according to my bee-sitter. all others fine so although I'm chalking one loss it's 'proper' queen is still alive in another nuc! although I haven't had any reports of my one hive at the association apiary.

Click to expand...

the one at the association survived as well - so one casualty from thirteen is fine by me