Hi have a hive. 3rd spring. 2nd overwintered. I opened it up for a full spring inspection. There are tons of dead bees. And the colony is there but maybe a handful of bees. I could not find a queen.
-queenless
-Moldy cells
plenty of honey but one a couple of the 8 frames there was only honey on the top of the frame
-a lot of empty cells, no eggs or larvae
-white crystals on the side of cells
bees with their heads in the cells, bums out stick like that
dead bees and dead larvae inside of cells
-some dead bees on floor of hive
a giant spider living in there with them with some webbing- cannot rule out wax moth though bc I saw webbing
I wonder if I should quickly get another queen? And should provide new frames to replace some of the frames that look particularly useless or gross
How do I know what I have to dispose of?
I have foundationless frames
I’m so sad. This is hard emotionally for me. Maybe I’m not cut out for bee keeping but I really want to trudge on.
Sounds like varroa excrement. So sorry, always tough to discover a dead or near-dead colony after winter. @Doug1 is a venerable Canadian beek with some varroa-battle chops, and can hopefully fill in some regional detail to my recommendation for a strong mite management plan, if you want to give it another go.
I have these. Not sure when I should use them for the first time. I inspect everything regularly and haven’t noticed anything odd. Is this stuff proper? When should I treat my new hive? They are 21 days in from a package.
Don’t give up…you are experiencing a normal setback and only time with the bees will get you to a point where you get repeatable successful beekeeping experiences. And during that process, you are going to lose more hives. It took me a decade to know what I was doing…and like you I asked a lot of questions.
From what you have described, several thoughts popped into my mind…I’ll try to keep it simple:
Eva alludes to a comprehensive varroa management plan…I use oxalic acid extender pads/blue shop towels during the summer to keep my mite population from exploding in early fall…this doesn’t eliminate the mites. Then when the last honey is removed (later August), that day I insert Apivar strips…this process has kept my hives totally clean of mites. That’s not to say other methods don’t work…but this combo works for me.
It’s imperative to requeen each year…I make up nucs during the summer and buy mated queens to head them up. An aging queen’s hive is extremely vunerable to varroa. Run two hives…gives you more options.
There’s so much to go astray for the novice beekeeper…and I would strongly recommend the use of double-waxed black plastic foundation for numerous reasons.
Start out using the above techniques and get more experience under your belt and then you can fine tune your beekeeping to suit your personal philosophies.
I really do wish you the best in your beekeeping venture…it’s such a rewarding pastime…and can last a lifetime.
It looks like a genuine treatment pack, with a US EPA approval number.
I would wait until you have one brood box completely filled and they are ready for a second box. You need enough bees in the box to properly ventilate the hive when the strips are in there. Formic acid can be hard on bees and kills about 10% of queens too, so make sure you follow the package instructions, as @chau06 says. Lethality is higher in hot weather. The advantage of these strips is that you can use them with a honey super on the hive if you need to.
dont give up. we lost a hive to beetles at our 12 month mark. it was nothing but our own inexperience and mismanagement. we were gutted. felt like we’d let nature down.
we learnt from the experience and kept going and have had a lot of great experiences since them. it’s now 2 years later.
cheers
ron
sorry for your loss. Hope someone can help you out. I’m new so I’ll be reading along.
