# My new stingless bees! (SC/winter death)



## John D. Smith (Mar 17, 2003)

I was saddened to learn that I lost my first colonies ever this winter. Some of you may recall that I did a small SC research project for a Masters thesis. Following the study I decided to put the SC bees to the ultimate test. I did absolutely nothing to my hives last year. No OA, no FGMO - nothing. I opened each hive once last Spring to confirm a laying queen and collected the honey in the Fall. After a colder than average winter, I've discovered that all the controls (LC) have died while the SC survived and is collecting pollen. I won't suggest an across-the-board reason, but I found it interesting. I suspect the LC bees starved even though the hive had ample stores. I think it was too cold, too long for them to move to honey-ladened comb. The fact that only the controls died is perhaps mere coincidence. Opinions?

Best Regards,


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## db_land (Aug 29, 2003)

*Where the LC bees weakened by mites?*

Did you monitor the mite loads on LC vs SC? Could bee that the LC hives had their health and/or immune system compromised by mites. How many "control" and how many SC did you have in the study?


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

From the pictures I see, I would also consider cold kill. The size cluster I see, is way to small, and looks like they had a diminishing cluster probably to the point that a cold night finally killed them off. I just don't see enough bees. And the dead cluster size is very small.

Sometimes when you see bees in cells, it has nothing to do with starvation. Bees will go into the cells of the cluster area, dislocate their wing joints so they can pump their muscles, to produce heat.

Coincideance you ask? Since you did not verify, or at least comment on such things as mite counts, fall brood cycles, and other important data, it would be senseless to even draw any conclusions or comparisions.


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## Aspera (Aug 1, 2005)

How many of each type of hive are we talking about?


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