# New Beekeeper Ontario! Bee death with honey: mold or temperature?



## BeeFit (Apr 21, 2016)

Hey everyone,

My name is Trevor and I'm a Personal Trainer that lives in a small town in southern Ontario. I got interested in beekeeping and the idea of it a while ago but had only decided that I actually wanted to do it myself when I started watching Elementary. At the start of this year I began training a farmer, he eventually mentioned to me that he had hives and did some beekeeping as a hobby. Since I was so excited and wanted to know everything he had to share about beekeeping he brought me to his hives. I took home a super and extracted the honey and wax from it to get the experience doing it and I will be getting my first hive soon. I've purchased The Practical Beekeeper: Beekeeping Naturally by Michael Bush and intend on absorbing as much of it as I can and continue from there in attempts to master beekeeping to the best of my abilities. I will be contributing to this forum the best I can when I become more knowledgeable and I will most certainly be referencing it when I have questions.

I have a question about the dead hive that I got the honey from. The brood nest had a clump of bees that had a bunch of mold on them. It seemed odd. Obviously, I'm no expert on the manner, but it looked as if they died almost instantly. The best way I could describe it would be that it looked like in movies when there is a flash freezing and people become frozen in an active position. My confusion is first how they might have died and second what might the mold be? It seems to me that mold would act slowly, so to kill them in a solid active clump seems unlikely to me. But that's why I'm looking for answers, first to help my friend with his problem, and then to avoid it in the future for my own hives.

The circumstances are this:
Proximal Hives - 7 hives in a row, 5 were dead, only this one had the mold
Location (General) - Just outside Chatham Ontario
Location (Specific) - On his massive cucumber farm, right beside a small bush (maybe 1/2 acre bush)
Discovery time - 2 weeks or so ago
Recent Past Weather - We had an unusual "spring" with summer temperatures in February and snow in April. We had a temperature extremes difference of -8C (17.6F) and 20C (68F) within 5 days in March.
Recent Past Care - Unfortunately I have no idea. I would have to talk to him for specifics on the last time (prior to our discovery) that he opened the hives. It may have been prior to winter but I can't say for sure. I apologize, I'm sure that information would be useful.

Our guess is that the extreme temperature differences may have caused the sudden death and the mold came after. Either way I wouldn't mind anyone's insight on the situation. I didn't get a picture of the actual mold on the clump of frozen "active" bees as I described earlier. But I did get pictures of some bits of it on the super that I took to extract. We also brought home a male (his daughter wanted to hold one) and later realized he had a bit of the mold on him so I got a picture of him as well. He seemed sluggish and didn't fly much at all, I took video of him but I wont bother uploading it anywhere unless someone is curious. But I don't yet know the mannerisms of male bees specifically. 















These were in the top super with honey that I took home.








This guy was alive and moving but had the same mold on his left side.

Any information would be greatly appreciated as well as tips on how to more effectively provide information. I'm excited to *BEE* here! ...sorry, only time I promise.

Thanks,

Trevor


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

Welcome Trevor!


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