# How to tell if your bees are still alive



## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

If it's 50°F and no wind just lift the cover and peek in.


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## Bsweet (Apr 9, 2010)

Yep what Barry said, If its above 45 deg. a quick peek won't hurt just don't pull any frames or fool around more than a minute or so. Jim


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## Ray4852 (May 27, 2011)

I tapped on the hive and listen to the singing. No need to take off the cover.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

That works too.


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

What Ray said. If all is silent they are dead, unless you are really hard of hearing.


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## Ryan Elder (May 23, 2011)

that might be a big problem then, I couldn't hear anything, I will check again though


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## Box (Jul 30, 2010)

You could use a IR thermometer ,no disturbence :applause:

birds and wind make a lot of noise when you try to hear the humm


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## Ryan Elder (May 23, 2011)

yea, there was no noise, does that mean they are 100% dead?

also, how loud should it be, cause there was a breeze as well as other background noise


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## ralittlefield (Apr 25, 2011)

bluegrass said:


> unless you are really hard of hearing.


That's me! I could not hear a sound from either of my hives and went out to take them apart on a nice day earlier this week. What a surprise! They were flying from one of the hives! I guess that I need to get a stethoscope!


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## Ryan Elder (May 23, 2011)

Ok, just confirmed both hives are 100% dead, the hive on the right appeared to be starved (bad management, will do better next year), the left one though had plenty of food in it, I don't understand how it could have died if it had enough food, also checked for mites, unless they fell off there weren't any that I could see, anyone have an answer as to how this hive died?


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

Ryan, mites are always suspect #1. However, if you want a diagnosis and not a guess post a few pics. The sages here at Beesource are very helpful.


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

I always recommend that people collect samples of their dead outs and send them to the bee lab for analysis. It may not tell you what killed them, but it will tell you what underlying problems you had that may have contributed. 
Directions are here: http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=7472

Sorry about the loss.


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## Ryan Elder (May 23, 2011)

Thank you very much for the help, I will post pictures tomorrow most likely, also I will collect samples of the bees to send to the lab tomorrow, unless it is necessary that I do it now.


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## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

If you're sending them to Beltsville:



> How to Send Adult Honey Bees
> · Send at least 100 bees and if possible, select bees that are dying or that died recently. Decayed bees are not satisfactory for examination.
> · Bees should be placed in and soaked with 70% ethyl, methyl, or isopropyl alcohol as soon as possible after collection and packed in leak-proof containers.
> · USPS, UPS, and FedEx do no accept shipments containing alcohol. Just prior to mailing samples, pour off all excess alcohol to meet shipping requirements.
> ...


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

Tomorrow will be fine; 1 day isn't going to a make a difference considering you don't know when they died and it is winter so decay isn't really and issue..

If the cluster is still intact take the bees from there... They will be the freshest.


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## Ryan Elder (May 23, 2011)

Ok, one hive had the cluster still intact pretty well, the other I'll have to check again but I didn't see much.


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## franktrujillo (Jan 22, 2009)

if its a small cluster they probably didn't build up enough bees to make the winter.or happens when we get a cold snap and all foragers are out.happened twice this year.the strongest of my hives are doing fine i have one that has a small cluster but there still alive..


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## Ryan Elder (May 23, 2011)

This fall in October we got about maybe 6 inches of snow so we had a good cold snap in there, could that have contributed to this?


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

one possibility is that the empty hive could have had mite issues in the fall. the other hive may have robbed it out and brought the mites back home. do you recall seeing any robbing?


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## Ryan Elder (May 23, 2011)

That actually does sound like a good possibility. I do recall seeing some activity around the hive that I thought was robbing but this being my first year I wasn't 100% sure.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

sorry about your bees ryan. i've only had bees about a year and a half. i didn't check for mites, but i got lucky. i'm going to do a better job monitoring this year.


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## Ryan Elder (May 23, 2011)

I got lazy about it, maybe I didn't do enough research, maybe I didn't do thorough inspections. Whatever the case, I have learned from my mistakes and this year I will know to educate myself to the fullest extent and to do good inspections. Despite the cost of new packages, I still will try again.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

good for you ryan. when i started, i read everything i could get my hands on. but when i got out there with the bees, i felt like i didn't know anything. i made a LOT of mistakes, and i was getting frustrated. then i made the decision to look at making mistakes as a good thing, necessary and valuable to the learning process. gradually i got more comfortable with the inspections. this forum is a good place for ideas and information, but the real learning in beekeeping is the trying and doing. good luck!


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## 1sttimekeeper (Dec 14, 2011)

Hi Ryan,

I'm sorry you lost your hives. This is my first year for bees and I lost my hive (just one) too. It's sad. I got lots of help here. This spring I plan to start two hives and be more diligent about checking the hives. Last spring and summer I dreaded checking the hive because I didn't want to get stung. I also didn't know what I was looking at/for. The weather wasn't much help either, since it was so stinkin' hot! 

I'm with you though, I'm not giving up. I want to be a good steward of these amazing creatures.


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

Do you still have stores in the hives? I would leave them set up and see if they get any activity as the weather warms. It will tell you if you have other colonies near by, and you may even get a swarm for nothing, or could line the bees back to their source.

So lets talk about the source of these bees. did they both come from the same supplier? Were they packages or Nucs? Packages are really unlikely to die their first winter from Mites.... that doesn't mean they didn't, but it is less likely in the first season. 

Other things to consider would be Starvation, Condensation, and just plain old freezing to death if the clusters were real small. 

The sample analysis will tell you more so that you are better prepared for next season.


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## Ryan Elder (May 23, 2011)

These were packages that came from the same supplier. Maybe I didn't look hard enough but every time I checked on them I never saw mites. Also, the dead cluster looked small to me but I was so sure that I had a good strong and highly populated hive (at least the left one was strong, the one on the right may have been a little weaker). Starvation in the left hive was not a reason for there death because they had plenty of stores. The hive on the right though didn't have many if any stores so that may have been a cause to that hive's death. I guess the lab tests will tell me for sure what happened.


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

Did you add them to my poll?
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?263775-Winter-2011-2012-deadout-Poll.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

ryan, i think it would be hard to see mites when doing an inspection. you usually have to check by pulling out some capped drone brood, use a sticky board, do an alcohol wash, or sugar roll. after reading about the losses that others were having, i decided to read up on varroa. the best info i could find was at http://scientificbeekeeping.com/ .

it took a few weeks to read and reread all of stuff on there, and not all on this forum agree with everything that dr. oliver has come up with, but for me it was very educational and well worth the time and effort.

if you decide to check it out, i would recommend reading the most recent papers first, and work your way back.


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## Ryan Elder (May 23, 2011)

New info:

Did a thorough check of the hives from bottom to top and here is what I found:

Right Hive:
Appeared to have some kind of mildew on the sides of bottom box and on bottom board, as well as what looked like mildew (blue-ish tint) on many frames of empty comb (this could mean there was a lot of moisture in the hive which would lead to freezing in the winter)
Very large cluster at the bottom so this rules out freezing to death due to small cluster (most likely)
I put the bees in alcohol to send to the lab and there appeared to be many brown specks floating to the top, don't know exactly what varroa should look like in the alcohol, but I would venture a guess that they might have had mites)
Also they actually did have some food left so they couldn't have completely starved

Left Hive:
Not quite as many bees as the right hive
Plenty of food
Not much else new

I will post pictures of each later once I upload them to my computer


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

here is what mites look like, just picture them floating


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

cool pic bluegrass, what did you use to drop those with?


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

They were dropped with Apistan.


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## Ryan Elder (May 23, 2011)

Thank you for the picture, how big about are those because I can't really get a scale for how big they are from the picture


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

Ryan Elder said:


> Thank you for the picture, how big about are those because I can't really get a scale for how big they are from the picture


Note the bee leg in the right corner... This is about 6 sq inches. Just a little larger than a ball point pen tip.


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## libhart (Apr 22, 2010)

The point of comparison I've always heard is that they're as big as a period at the end of a sentence (on a printed page). That's pretty close.


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## Ryan Elder (May 23, 2011)

So, I'm resurrecting this thread today because when I went out to my beeyard for not much reason at all I saw bees coming in and out of my right hive (I guess the wind blew the entrance blocker off). What I am wondering is are these bees just robbing out the extra stores from the past year or is it a swarm that found a new home? I realize it is March in Pennsylvania but we've been having 70 degree weather for a good amount of time now.


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## Bsweet (Apr 9, 2010)

You can watch them for a while to see if any are bringing in pollen , or watch the bees to see how they are fling. are they leaving the hive very fast or do the seem to leave kinda slow like they are going into the hive empty and leaving heavy/full? You will have to open it up to know for sure. Jim


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## TriJim (Mar 11, 2011)

Ryan Elder said:


> So, I'm resurrecting this thread today because when I went out to my beeyard for not much reason at all I saw bees coming in and out of my right hive (I guess the wind blew the entrance blocker off). What I am wondering is are these bees just robbing out the extra stores from the past year or is it a swarm that found a new home? I realize it is March in Pennsylvania but we've been having 70 degree weather for a good amount of time now.


Really early for a swarm - most likely robbers getting a free meal. Just open and check - looking for a queen or signs of a queen (like brood) - everything else is probably robbing. Good luck.


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