# Bee Death Rate question



## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

What's going on inside the hive? Brood? Pollen? Honey?


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## Delta 21 (Mar 4, 2016)

Nice looking hives. 

If those are from hive cleaning, my ladies usually carry them all the way out of the robber screen all the way to the ground. They should be used to the screen in a few days and the robbing should stop.

Any evidence the screen is helping?


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## Radomire (Jun 14, 2017)

There is brood, lots of it, but honey is low, maybe a comb and half combined. There used to be more honey stores on top of the brood comes, maybe the first two inches of the combs were honey, now it noticeably less than that. I haven't seen any considerable pollen stores since June. 

Thanks Delta I built the hives myself, they used to look even nicer before the bear attacked them

Yea, yesterday was the first day I installed the robber screen, and this morning I saw the 35 dead bees inside it, as of this afternoon they're all gone so it looks like the undertaker bees figured it out. I won't know if the screen is helping until I inspect but I think I'll need to give it some time before I see any noticeable improvement on their pollen and honey stores. Thanks for the encouragement that the robbing may stop within the next few days, I hope so.

Heres a link of the bees behavior today

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sze3298tdgldt8m/IMG_5486.MOV?dl=0


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## Delta 21 (Mar 4, 2016)

Looks like they are re-orienting and figuring out their new entrance. Looking for any nook or crannie besides the big hole you left them :waiting: 

Mine despised me so much they bored a hole thru the 1" blue insulation into a crack in the bottom board rather than use the access I provided. 















Some of those zipping in fast like they are charging the door may be robbers that are being stopped. Slowing the movie down to 1/2 speed really lets you see how the bees move better than full speed. The hive smell coming out of the entrance is the draw.


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## Radomire (Jun 14, 2017)

Delta 21 said:


> Looks like they are re-orienting and figuring out their new entrance. Looking for any nook or crannie besides the big hole you left them :waiting:
> 
> Mine despised me so much they bored a hole thru the 1" blue insulation into a crack in the bottom board rather than use the access I provided.
> View attachment 35429
> ...



Yea I'll have to do some video analysis to see whats really going on here. This is my second year beekeeping as well, but since I lost last years bees around november, I haven't dealt with a hive in winter yet.


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## Eikel (Mar 12, 2014)

> I haven't dealt with a hive in winter yet.


 You'll have withdrawal symptoms but spring will come again and your sanity will be questioned again.


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## Radomire (Jun 14, 2017)

It seems that other beeks in my area are having the same trouble with some of their hives: Lots of brood, very little pollen and honey stores. 

As far as I have read its only a local thing here in the Hudson Valley. Perhaps robbing wasn't a factor after all. 

My plan is to switch to 2:1 solution


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

The problem with counting dead bees is that most are in the grass where you can't see them so your estimates are usually way off. If you are somewhere there is no grass in front of the hive, you'll have a better idea. Of course a lot of dead bees on the bottom are usually an indication of a lot of loss as they haven't hauled them out as fast as they are dying. If you do the math, though, in a peak buildup the queen is laying 3,000 eggs a day (Dzeirzon) and in a normal maintenance mode she's laying 1,000 eggs a day, and the bees are always, in the long run, dying off six weeks later, so that's 1,000 bees a day dying six weeks after the queen is in maintenance mode, and 3,000 a day dying six weeks after peak buildup. In other words, there are a lot of bees dying every day normally.


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