Autopsy of my colony

[jackstraw]

Had a nice strong colony of carnolians going into winter. Had approx 40lb of stores in brood box and super, much of this was ivy. Opened them up for a few seconds in late Dec and trickled OA, they were quite active when I had them open. Hefted them every couple of weeks and still quite heavy
They are now dead

We have had a mild winter in Kent, they were off the ground on a stand in a relatively sheltered spot. There was an open mesh floor and solid crown board with insulation over
Had a good look and there is no sign of disease, no mould, no faeces on the frames or front of the hive, a few varroa mites present but very little, no abnormal wings, just a few scattered bees on the frames and hundreds of bees on the floor.
there was quite a lot of stores still present
no tongues out
no bees had their heads in cells

What did seem unusual:
all stores I could find were crystallised
they had chewed up the wax surrounding the stores in a number of areas in some places going through to the other side, under these areas was a snow drift of chewed wax

I had resisted giving fondant as the hefting showed there was still stores present

Do you think my error was to leave them with ivy honey and they have died of starvation through not being able to use the ivy honey in its crystallised state without additional water?

Obviously I appreciate it is difficult without having the open box in front of you but comments and advice would be welcome

 

[Tremyfro]

Oh no! That is awful. How disappointed you must be. Especially since you were monitoring the stores. Since I can't lift the hive with my carniolans I have been feeding some fondant. I don't know about the ivy honey. I know mine were storing it because I could smell it. That is so sad...poor bees...

 

[Jed D]

Was there a queen or brood anywhere ?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Bees have been dealing with Ivy stores for millennia
My money would be on nosema ....OA trickle being the death knell.

 

[For want of a better word]

Sad losing such a strong colony, think you have to bite the bullit and accept survival of the fittest


Fittest for current environmental conditions,,,, wet and cold... and that is the Summer!


Yeghes da

 

[For want of a better word]

Bees have been dealing with Ivy stores for millennia
My money would be on nosema ....OA trickle being the death knell.

My thoughts too ( I thought it would be a tad hash to say so)
How about some nice NZ Itialians/

Yeghes da

 

[beehive1234]

There you go, my argument exactly. Don't treat bees. Especially in the most stressful time of the year. So sorry you have lost your colony. Maybe the ivy honey and the treatment didn't mix? Always give them fondant. Treatment is not fully tested and guaranteed. I wouldn't submit my bees to things not fully tested.
I do have a colony that have a lot of dead bees on the open mesh floor. I think it may be wind through the OMF. So I have put in the observation floor, as they may be exposed to wind from this new floor I bought last Summer. It is much bigger OMF than my other hives. Searching for answers myself, all the time.
Again, I am so sorry the colony died, every colony loss is a disaster for all of us.

 

[itma]

The Ivy shouldn't have been a problem.

IF the dead bees haven't gone mouldy, they could potentially still be tested for Nosema.
N Apis tends to be associated with dysentery, N Ceranae not so.
Weak colony with Nosema, plus Oxalic is (anecdotally at least) a recipe for disaster.
But that isn't (by any means) the only possibility.

When was Q (or new brood) last seen? An unsuccessful late supercedure can also mean disaster.
What about varroa treatment (and drops) before the Oxalic? Never minding whether any of the dead bees in the hive had deformed wings, the varroa state in Autumn can be important to getting healthy long-lived Winter bees ...

Its a bummer, but probably needn't be a mystery. Thing is to see what lessons can be learned for the future. Even if its just things to watch out for.

 

[jackstraw]

Thanks

Thanks everyone for your comments
Having gone back and looked again in the 'cold light of day' I realise I had overlooked quite a lot of fecal staining inside the hive.
ITMA and others are right, it seems that my colony were weakened by nosema or perhaps dysentery and did not survive the December OA treatment

I am interested to know whether it is nosema, dysentery (or perhaps something else) How would I go about getting my bees analysed?

Regards
Jack

 

[beehive1234]

Looking at the pictures I don't understand what has burnt the wax away from around the bees?

 

[Chris B]

"A few scattered bees on the frames and hundreds on the floor".

That is not a lot of bees. The size of the cluster and lack of any brood is another indicator. This was some sort of queen problem and your colony dwindled to below viable numbers. Nosema and/or oxalic overdose may have accelerated the demise but not the underlying issue.

 

[jonnybeegood]

Looking at the pictures I don't understand what has burnt the wax away from around the bees?

Are you looking at different pictures?

 

[jackstraw]

Tens of hundreds

Sorry, didn't mean hundreds to be taken literally, haven't counted but there was the equivalent of a small colony on the floor, say 5,000. They are carnolians and by their nature have small number overwinter
They did supersede late and so you may well be right that there were insufficient young bees to get them through
I cannot explain the chewed wax, they have taken it back to the face of the cells behind, the area underneath had a snowdrift of chewed wax and crystallised honey. I've not seen this before and would be interested to know why they did this.
There was no runny honey in the colony, all stores had crystallised

 

[Cazza]

Looking at the pictures I don't understand what has burnt the wax away from around the bees?

Could that be from mice eating the honey stores? They look like frames I stupidly left in my bee shed which mice tucked in to.
Cazza

 

[itma]

JackStraw, you seem keener to jump to conclusions than to supply the info from which a conclusion might be reached!

1/ It was "brood box and super". But was there a QX? Was your 'super' on top or underneath?

2/ You say there was a late supercedure. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but the suggestion seems to be that it was 'imperfect' - without the 2 Qs working together.) When was this? And did you observe any NEW worker brood after this supercedure?

3/ Before the Oxalic, what varroa treatment did they get? When? What were the varroa drops (or other varroa metrics) before and after that treatment?

4/ My initial impression of the comb damage was that it was mouse damage, and quite possibly after colony death. However, the photos are too small and too blurred (shaky?) to tell much.
What mouseguarding did this colony have?

5/ The photos seem to show a shallow ('super') frame without capped stores. Which I wouldn't expect to see on top ('super') if there was a lot of stores... is that the case?


Is it now closed up bee-tight (never mind mouse-tight) ?

 

[jackstraw]

Thanks again

JackStraw, you seem keener to jump to conclusions than to supply the info from which a conclusion might be reached!

1/ It was "brood box and super". But was there a QX? Was your 'super' on top or underneath?

2/ You say there was a late supercedure. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but the suggestion seems to be that it was 'imperfect' - without the 2 Qs working together.) When was this? And did you observe any NEW worker brood after this supercedure?

3/ Before the Oxalic, what varroa treatment did they get? When? What were the varroa drops (or other varroa metrics) before and after that treatment?

4/ My initial impression of the comb damage was that it was mouse damage, and quite possibly after colony death. However, the photos are too small and too blurred (shaky?) to tell much.
What mouseguarding did this colony have?

5/ The photos seem to show a shallow ('super') frame without capped stores. Which I wouldn't expect to see on top ('super') if there was a lot of stores... is that the case?


Is it now closed up bee-tight (never mind mouse-tight) ?

Thanks for you attention, it is appreciated
Drip feeding information was not my intention, sorry if it came across that way

The set up from bottom up was a National cedar hive with mesh floor, brood box, super, solid glass crown board, insulated eke, roof.

I went through this and another hive on 2nd Sept as a prelude to putting the first tray of Apiguard on them on the 4th. However I found 2 charged queen cells mid frame in the brood box. Anticipated date of sealing was approx 6 Sept. I did not put any Apiguard on but instead removed the QE and left them alone.

I considered opening them up late Sept/ early Oct but took the view that if I found no brood I wouldn't be able to take any action until the Spring and indeed may disturb a newly mated Q so instead of fiddling I left them alone

Varroa drop in August, Sept and Oct was an average natural daily drop of between 1 -3 per day. I have been over the colony this evening and I have found one mite on a frame in the super but not a single mite on any bee. None of the bees look particularly stunted and there is no obvious wing deformity

A drilled metal mouse guard was put on in early Oct. There is no sign of any rodent presence, no dropping, bedding or other food on either the mesh floor or underneath. The mouse guard was still firmly in place yesterday. There was one dead wasp and a dead bumble bee but no other third parties

The hive was weighed several times in the autumn using scales. Allowing for the wooden boxes there was approx 40b of stores. Currently there are some empty cleaned out frames in the super, there are also some unsealed cells with crystallised honey in them, there are also sealed cells with crystallised honey. There are no cells with liquid honey. This is replicated in the brood box.

The box is indeed now bee and mouse tight

With kind regards and many thanks

Jack

 

[Jed D]

Taking all the above in to consideration , could this colony simply of died out ,due to no mated queen ?