# Fermentation odor from hive



## Goldprospector (May 17, 2012)

I had a hive swarm a while back...the remaining bees were not able to prevent robbing (I was gone for a week). When I was able to check on the hive...It had that fermenting odor coming from it...If you have ever smelled it, then you know excactly what I am referring to.

Anyway, I have that odor coming from another hive. I opened it up and everything looks fine...The only thing that I saw that seemed strange was the color of the cappings on the honey. The honey in the upper super is extremely dark, and the cappings look wet and almost clear or see-through.

I feel sure the odor is not goldenrod. There was still some nice brood, the queen was present (large and active), and the rest of the hive seems normal and functioning correctly. Nothing seems amiss and the SHB's were really not a factor (traps are working and I only saw two in the hive. They may have been a little agitated, but it could have been because I opened them up at 4:30 pm on a 70 degree day.

All of my hives have roughly the same activity in front, and the one that has the odor seems no different. 

The odor is so prevelant, you can smell it wafting from the front of the hive at 30 feet away in whatever direction the wind is blowing.

Any ideas or suggestions?


----------



## Belewsboy (Jun 6, 2012)

Mine really smell now and just like you said, if you're downwind, you'll get a good whiff of them. My smell is Goldenrod. You're not too far from me. Are you sure that's not what you smell?


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

is it a rotten egg smell?


----------



## Goldprospector (May 17, 2012)

Belewsboy said:


> Mine really smell now and just like you said, if you're downwind, you'll get a good whiff of them. My smell is Goldenrod. You're not too far from me. Are you sure that's not what you smell?


I'm not sure if it is goldenrod...It has been twenty years since I have overwintered bees.



Ian said:


> is it a rotten egg smell?


No, it smells sour, Like a dead hive.


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

like a dead hive, eh.

how close did you look at your brood?


----------



## Eddie Honey (May 30, 2011)

It's a small hive beetle infestation. 
I think they do something to the nectar and cause it to ferment.


----------



## sfisher (Sep 22, 2009)

They doodie in it!


----------



## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

Small hive beetles defecate (poop) in the honey. It ferments or rots leaving an oily appearance and eventually bursts the cappings running out of the hive. Bees will not eat it, and no sane human should either. The bees will eventually leave. It is technically not a swarm. It is absconding. Conditions become unliveable and they leave. Africanized bees are prone to abscond. That is how they developed the appearance of defeating Varroa and small hive beetles -- they actually leave when life gets tough.
The only smell near as bad is American foulbrood and you did not mention any symptom of AFB.


----------



## hemichuck (Oct 27, 2009)

Definately small hive beetles. If the surface of your capped honey has a slimey kind of look to it and there is the smell of fermentation you had better open it up and take a closer look because your about to have SHB larvae pop out everywhere. You can still save the hive if you have some drawn comb to put them on and you have time to feed them and get some brood out of another hive to help them catch up.


----------



## Goldprospector (May 17, 2012)

Ian said:


> how close did you look at your brood?


Looked closely and brood looks fine by my standards.




AmericasBeekeeper said:


> Small hive beetles defecate (poop) in the honey. It ferments or rots leaving an oily appearance and eventually bursts the cappings running out of the hive. Bees will not eat it, and no sane human should either. The bees will eventually leave. It is technically not a swarm. It is absconding. Conditions become unliveable and they leave. Africanized bees are prone to abscond. That is how they developed the appearance of defeating Varroa and small hive beetles -- they actually leave when life gets tough.
> The only smell near as bad is American foulbrood and you did not mention any symptom of AFB.


The last hive swarmed...but the remainings bees were not strong enough to keep the hive protected. I inspected them before I left. They were extremely crowded. Anyway, The brood does not have any symptoms of AFB nor do they look bad in any way.



hemichuck said:


> Definately small hive beetles. If the surface of your capped honey has a slimey kind of look to it and there is the smell of fermentation you had better open it up and take a closer look because your about to have SHB larvae pop out everywhere. You can still save the hive if you have some drawn comb to put them on and you have time to feed them and get some brood out of another hive to help them catch up.


I opened them up yesterday. I saw two live SHB's, there were about 10 dead in the two traps. Further inspection down in the hive really did not show any other Beetles...The capped honey may indeed have an "oily" look, although my first impression was "clear" caps. 

I think another inspection is in order although they will probably get pissy since it will be two days in a row. I do have some drawn comb. I have two Hive bodies drawn out in the freezer and several supers. 

What do you think about leaving the brood that is in the hive and replacing the honey comb with other drawn comb?


----------



## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

The last thing you want is more comb full and especially not empty. You can kiss them goodbye quickly with another super.


----------



## hemichuck (Oct 27, 2009)

This is a tricky and complicated process to guide you on unless I am standing in front of the hive to asses. I had a hive about a month ago that had been inspected about 2 weeks prior and everything looked fine. Good brood pattern,lots of eggs and larvae,not many shb's and as much capped honey as any other hive I had. When I opened it up the next time you could smell it and then as the frames came out I could see the slime. This hive was still full of bees and had plenty of brood and eggs/larvae and the queen was walking around doing her thing but I knew that in a matter of days there wouldnt be anything left. I had a couple of mediums full of drawn comb so I removed the whole hive and replaced the bottom board and the 2 mediums of comb in the original location. I found the queen on a frame and shook her into the new comb, then I took the original hive about 30 yards away and shook them out so they would all return to the original location.After that I found a couple of frames of capped honey from another hive and a couple of frames of capped brood and put them in the new hive and started feeding them. They are doing OK but that was a month ago. You might be hard pressed at this point for them to get built back up. You might be better off combining them with another hive(sans the SHB and bad comb of course) You might be better off sticking whats left in a nuc and nursing them along, or maybe cut your losses and look forward to the spring. Another(obviously smarter) beekeeper told me once that the main thing about bees is knowing when to give up(which I have a hard time doing)


----------



## Goldprospector (May 17, 2012)

AmericasBeekeeper said:


> The last thing you want is more comb full and especially not empty. You can kiss them goodbye quickly with another super.


I went through the hive today. I got several drawn out frames from the freezer and started taking the hive apart.

Just to let you know...I found and killed FOUR (4) SHB's. I thought it was odd...but that is all there were. 

Anyway, the hive was packed with bees...two hive bodies only. The Lower HB had NO stores or brood. It was empty of anything other than bees. Out of 20 frames, I would say that 16 total was completely covered with bees.

The upper HB, had 3 frames of honey...2 of them smelled bad and the cappings were clear looking maybe "Oily". The upper edges of the comb had nice white caps but the center was dark and oily.

I found 4 frames of brood. It looked healthy, but it was still not much IMO.

I started with a new BB, and HB and started transferring the good stuff over to the new hive...Yes I put the brood and two frames of pollen in the bottom HB and put the frames that were in the bottom of the old hive into a new HB on top. I closed down the entrance and added some sugar syrup mixed at 2:1 ratio. I put the rest of the pollen in the top HB.

It was probably not a good idea to reverse the brood nest, but I did not feel as if I had a choice. Hopefully the syrup will be stored as needed and the pollen will be moved up if they feel the need.

The three frames that I removed...I put them in a pan about 100 yards away and scratched the cappings. The bees are cleaning it...It does seem as if they are eating it...But it stinks...It is definitely NOT the goldenrod smell.


----------



## Michael B (Feb 6, 2010)

A couple of weeks ago I had a strange "dead hive" smell at one of my out yards. Upon closer inspection I discovered piles of dead drones laying in the grass at the front door of most hives. It was the results of mass eviction notices. Just the smell of a lot of dead drone bees.


----------



## Goldprospector (May 17, 2012)

hemichuck said:


> This is a tricky and complicated process to guide you on unless I am standing in front of the hive to asses. I had a hive about a month ago that had been inspected about 2 weeks prior and everything looked fine. Good brood pattern,lots of eggs and larvae,not many shb's and as much capped honey as any other hive I had. When I opened it up the next time you could smell it and then as the frames came out I could see the slime. This hive was still full of bees and had plenty of brood and eggs/larvae and the queen was walking around doing her thing but I knew that in a matter of days there wouldnt be anything left. I had a couple of mediums full of drawn comb so I removed the whole hive and replaced the bottom board and the 2 mediums of comb in the original location. I found the queen on a frame and shook her into the new comb, then I took the original hive about 30 yards away and shook them out so they would all return to the original location.After that I found a couple of frames of capped honey from another hive and a couple of frames of capped brood and put them in the new hive and started feeding them. They are doing OK but that was a month ago. You might be hard pressed at this point for them to get built back up. You might be better off combining them with another hive(sans the SHB and bad comb of course) You might be better off sticking whats left in a nuc and nursing them along, or maybe cut your losses and look forward to the spring. Another(obviously smarter) beekeeper told me once that the main thing about bees is knowing when to give up(which I have a hard time doing)


Funny thing is, there are way too many bees for a nuc...The frames were covered...really full. I will feed them a while and see if they will store it. I will also check out the hives right beside of them to see how the brood and honey stores are...If they have surplus, then I can move a couple over to this hive...If not, then I will let nature do what it must. 

I did not want to go through the other hives today because it seems like this time of year, if you do too much inside of a hive, then you can really start a robbing frenzy.


----------



## hemichuck (Oct 27, 2009)

I did not want to go through the other hives today because it seems like this time of year, if you do too much inside of a hive, then you can really start a robbing frenzy.[/QUOTE]

Aint that the truth, and when they get robbed it weakens the hive and opens the dopr for other pests like SHB to take over. You might want to stick a couple of the SHB oil traps up at the top for good measure. Just because your not seeing them dont mean that they arnt there. I have had numerous people tell me that they have no SHB but when I helped them inspect a hive I could point out plenty. I had twenty something hives at one point and had never seen a SHB but I did a trapout on a beetree one day and when I got them to my yard and opened the trap there were SHB's in there and it was like opening Pandoras box. Just a word of caution, if you do trap outs, take home bee tree's or do cut outs on buildings, have an alternate yard to move these bees to because they will bring home all kinds of goodies.


----------



## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

My bet is goldenrod. My hives still have a lot of odor from GR. Also, capped Fall honey in my hives always seems to have a different look than Spring or Summer. The Fall cappings are shiny (but not oily) and much more yellow or clear, not usually white. SHB infestations are pretty obvious, so you should have been able to rule that out easily. Brood disease takes more skill to detect and diagnose. If the brood looked normal, then I think the action you took was good. I generally don't like to reconfigure hives at this time of the year, but you should be fine.


----------



## hemichuck (Oct 27, 2009)

goldenrod smells like dirty sweat sox in a locker room. Slimey looking cappings and fermentation smell equals SHB infestation.


----------



## Belewsboy (Jun 6, 2012)

I know what "Dirty Sweat Sox" smell like. That's what mine smell like. Define a "Fermentation Smell" for future reference.


----------



## Goldprospector (May 17, 2012)

Belewsboy said:


> I know what "Dirty Sweat Sox" smell like. That's what mine smell like. Define a "Fermentation Smell" for future reference.


The only way I can describe it is a sour smell...It smells a lot like fermenting corn. Don't ask why I know what fermenting corn smells like.



AstroBee said:


> If the brood looked normal, then I think the action you took was good. I generally don't like to reconfigure hives at this time of the year, but you should be fine.


The only problem is that today they smell just as bad as they did before I swapped out comb. After the swap, They have already consumed 2 gallons of 1 1/2 galons of 2:1 syrup. I don't know if I am wasting time but I will let the hive get heavy again and then see if they can ride out the winter.


----------



## hemichuck (Oct 27, 2009)

Belewsboy said:


> I know what "Dirty Sweat Sox" smell like. That's what mine smell like. Define a "Fermentation Smell" for future reference.


Ask your local moonshiner.... No seriously I guess it is hard to describe but its a rotting fruit kind of smell. I have been helping my Dad make wine since my single digits so I've been around plenty of fermintation. Have you ever left any produce in your refrigerator and forgot about it and came back to find it all slimey and stinky laying in the bottom of the drawer oozing all over the place? Take a big wiff of that and thats "fermentation smell" or extract some honey thats not ripe and put it in a jar for a couple of weeks and take a smell.


----------



## Goldprospector (May 17, 2012)

hemichuck said:


> You might want to stick a couple of the SHB oil traps up at the top for good measure. Just because your not seeing them dont mean that they arnt there.


I have oil traps in the hives...I put them in all my hives whether I notice anything or not. Before I opened up the hive, the traps had been in for two weeks since the last time I checked them...I found one beetle in one trap and none in the other. When I ran the hive tool on top of the traps...there were none hiding under the edge of the traps. It is just a strange happening.
The biggest problem, or strngest observation is that I would have thought that bees would not eat fermented honey...But the frames that I removed (stank to high heaven), the bees had them stripped in about 4 hours. While I was working the hive...the robbing frenzy was amazing. I took the frames out in the woods about 100 yards away. There was no way I was going to try to keep the bees off of them...If I would have taken them to the freezer, I would have brought 10,000 bees in the house following me.

Another reason that I don't think it is goldenrod is that it is the only hive that smells this way.


----------



## hemichuck (Oct 27, 2009)

Hopefully removing those frames will cure whatever the problem was. When there is a dearth the bees will eat pretty much anything thats left unprotected. Last one I had that the SHB's got into had 2 deep and a medium box and when I pulled them I had bees out of all 24 hives in my yard going nuts. I should have taken them elsewhere but I got busy and by the time I closed the hive it was too late.


----------



## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

hemichuck said:


> goldenrod smells like dirty sweat sox in a locker room. Slimey looking cappings and fermentation smell equals SHB infestation.


Unfortunately, I've had several SHB infestations, but each time there was no mystery as to the cause. I believe that you'd have to be pretty oblivious to miss such an occurrence. That doesn't seem to be the case here. The OP has inspected the hive and although reports adult SHB, I did not see a report of SHB larvae. And as for the smell of GR, I've repeatedly heard the reference to locker room odor, but my nose reports more of a sour smell. Furthermore, I've never lost a full-sized colony (OP reports 16 frames of bees) to SHB. I realize that further south things are very different, but at this latitude SHB are fairly benign when populations are strong. Of course if there are other issues going on then all bets are off.


----------



## Goldprospector (May 17, 2012)

AstroBee said:


> Unfortunately, I've had several SHB infestations, but each time there was no mystery as to the cause. I believe that you'd have to be pretty oblivious to miss such an occurrence. That doesn't seem to be the case here. The OP has inspected the hive and although reports adult SHB, I did not see a report of SHB larvae. And as for the smell of GR, I've repeatedly heard the reference to locker room odor, but my nose reports more of a sour smell. Furthermore, I've never lost a full-sized colony (OP reports 16 frames of bees) to SHB. I realize that further south things are very different, but at this latitude SHB are fairly benign when populations are strong. Of course if there are other issues going on then all bets are off.


I like the word "mystery". In all my years of beekeeping (20 some years ago), there were always things that seemed to be best suited for the word mystery.

As far as SHB larvae...None were noticable. I have seen them before in a deadout that I moved the combs to a frezer and the larvae wiggle out to the bottom of the freezer...but I did not see any in the hive.

As far as losing bees...I can only hope that they make it through the winter but if they don't...then there may have been some other problem or mystery that lead to thier demise.

They seem to be willing to stay with the smell since they have now taken over 3 gallons of 2:1 syrup since I rearranged there hive a couple days ago.
I just hope they get it up to 90 pounds or so before the winter sets in. other than these, I have one more hive that is a little light, but all seem to be good for the winter.


----------



## hemichuck (Oct 27, 2009)

I've lost one full size hive and one double deep nuc to small hive beetles. I have seen hive beetles in virtually every hive I've had in the last four years (usually have between 30 and 50)but I only lost the two. Its an ugly sight to say the least. There are several varieties of goldenrod and I dont know what they all smell like but the good old Kentucky state flower smells like sweat sox to me.Good luck on the hive and keep me informed,I would like to know what happens.


----------



## coxwain (Oct 27, 2014)

Reviving an old thread

I am completing my 1st season of beekeeping and just went into the hive.
I noticed a lot of mold build up. Much more than I have seen all summer. As well, I have a fermented smell coming from the hive. Not a rotten sock smell.

Is this the beetle problem as well.

I have a screened board with a removable tray and i cleaned it the other day and it was caked with mold.

I had tried to get a 2nd hive started the middle of August, but it didn't work and the queen left. I am worried, this being my first season that these bees will not winter well

Anyone have any other thoughts?

I haven't taken the hive apart as I don't want to disturb the bees. The bees still seem to be bringing white and taupe coloured pollen to the hive.

Also, I had put a 1ltr glass jar of syrup in the hive and almost none of it was used up. I thought that it might be the syrup but it doesnt seem to have the smell when I took it out.

I had placed a jar of syrup outside the hive earlier and they would go through them within a day or two. The one I put in the hive was there for 2 weeks and < 1/4 of the syrup was used up.


----------



## dsegrest (May 15, 2014)

I don't know if it is a NC thing, or Goldenrod. Some hives stink in the fall. If everything else is good, just don't worry.


----------



## coxwain (Oct 27, 2014)

Thanks, I hope you are right! 

The mold seems bothersome too.


----------



## FollowtheHoney (Mar 31, 2014)

I am new so I wouldn't want to give advice except to suggest you use the advanced search. Click on advanced search in top right below search box. Then click on posts and in key words try mold in hive. From what I read, bees can clean up a lot, but going into winter I would be concerned about moisture.


----------



## coxwain (Oct 27, 2014)

I think I will construct a box with a mesh/burlap bottom and fill the box with cedar chips. It will absorb the moisture and insulate.

I will not add ventilation holes or if I do they will be above the insulation/cedar chips as you can get a draft through the hive. Similar to house construction.


----------



## Santa Caras (Aug 14, 2013)

Goldprospector said:


> ...It smells a lot like fermenting corn. Don't ask why I know what fermenting corn smells like. [QOUTE]
> 
> I'll bet you did like we did in Texas when I was growing up. We'd take a 5gal bucket...ferment some corn and and put it in a burlap sack and tie it to a rock. Drop it in a lake and set out a trot line. Every catfish in that lake would swarm to that area and we'd be eating catfish for a month. Yummm!


----------

