# Bees are gone and now what to do with beehive for winter?



## DeniseJ (Oct 28, 2014)

Hi this is my 1st year keeping bees. I had a very healthy bee colony going into September. This summer I did a harvest 7/22 & again 8/27 -- and harvested 13 gallons of honey. Last weekend I was going to place sugar bricks in my hive & prepare the hive for winter. There were no bees. Now what?? Can I leave the hive in my yard? Do I bring it into the garage? Will the honey be okay in the hive?


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

Welcome to Beesource!


> Can I leave the hive in my yard? 

If there is still honey in that hive, and there is still _flying _weather in Illinois, chances are that some other local bees may harvest that honey and haul it off. If you want to prevent that, put the combs somewhere that bees can't get to them.


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## jbraun (Nov 13, 2013)

You may NOT want to leave your empty hive unattended. Not unless you like wax moths. If you have a chest freezer you want to freeze the frames to kill eggs of wax moths and small hive beetles. I've seen time in the freezer listed from a few hours to a few days. Never having done that myself I'm unaware of the correct amount of time. Afterwards put them in leaf bags in your garage. Extract all of the honey now for your use.

Sorry about your loss. On the bright side you have a lot of drawn frame to restart a nuc or a package next spring. By the way, this is why it's suggested to start with 2 hives.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

I'd simply close up the hive (entrance) and make sure the entire hive is bee proof after I first looked through it to make sure there isn't a mouse inside. Your combs will be fine till middle of spring when you will have to be concerned about wax moths. I suppose there is time yet this fall for moths to do some damage, but I'd still keep it all outside and just keep an eye on it, checking once a week for any wax worms starting. Once we get colder weather, the cold will take care of any pests.


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

Welcome Denise!


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## ccar2000 (Aug 9, 2009)

Barry said:


> I'd simply close up the hive (entrance) and make sure the entire hive is bee proof after I first looked through it to make sure there isn't a mouse inside. Your combs will be fine till middle of spring when you will have to be concerned about wax moths. I suppose there is time yet this fall for moths to do some damage, but I'd still keep it all outside and just keep an eye on it, checking once a week for any wax worms starting. Once we get colder weather, the cold will take care of any pests.



+1 

I would spray the empty combs with BT prior to storage. In my area that is good enough to kee the wax moth larva from messing up your comb.


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## burns375 (Jul 15, 2013)

If it was my hive I would go thru it, clean it up, propolis burr comb etc. Bring it inside the sun room for a few weeks until freezing weather comes, then store outside with the entrances closed down until spring. In spring put bees on it or moths could infest it badly. If you skip the sun room step, probably not a big deal, but there could be a bit of moth activity until they freeze out. 

bt will work too, but not a fan of putting stuff in the hive other than syrup and protein patties.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Before you tear it all apart, it might be useful to enlist an experienced beekeeper to go through it and see if any reason can be found to explain why your bees died.

This may give you valuable information to prevent bee loss next year. Even with the bees gone, there are likely be clues to be seen by expert eyes. You could also send a sample of the comb to Beltsville for analysis (it's free) to see in there were diseases in the hive. 

One thought though: if you harvested 13 gallons of honey from a _first year _ colony, how much honey and nectar was left when you took the last of it off on 8/27? Thirteen gallons is a lot for a start-up colony, I think. In normal years you should probably plan on feeding sugar syrup through the fall to make up that weight (plus put-on sugar bricks as a back-up over the winter). Fall flows are not as reliable as spring and summer ones and if you take off a lot of honey in August you have to keep an eye on whether the bees are finding enough forage to replace it, and if not, start syrup feeding early enough to get them up to winter weight. Without that your hive might be too light for winter survival. Something to think about for next year. You obviously had a remarkably good honey year and must live in an area with good nectar resources. 

If it was my hive, however, I would really want to know why the bess left or died. Bees aren't annual plants like beans that you start and harvest and expect to start again from scratch each year.

Enj.


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## awebber96 (May 28, 2012)

I second both of Enj.'s points. 

Try to learn something about why they died. Mites? A late swarm? A late-fall queen failure? Disease? Poison? Rob-out? They all could be culprits.

Also, although you didn't say this was a first-year hive started from scratch, you did say you were a first-year beekeeper. Pulling 13 gallons of honey (almost 160 pounds) is a whopper of a haul for a first-year beekeeper; it would be a spectacular, unbelievable haul for a hive started from scratch. I also wonder whether you took too much, too late and didnt leave enough in the brood boxes.

You should have been monitoring this hive religiously (e.g. at least tipping it weekly) throughout Sept and Oct to check fall weights and feeding if there was any thought they might be light. If you were going to start this in late October, you would have been too late to do much of anything.

You are certainly not in a small minority--seems almost every first-year figures out a way to start from scratch their second year ( I know I did). So keep your chin up, and do all the studying you can before next spring. You might read the CC Miler book "Fifty Years Among the Bees". Its a great read and he was located just a few miles north of you in Marengo, IL. You would learn a lot about the timing of your local swarm seasons, nectar flows, harvest times, etc.


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