# Massive Early Spring Die Off - Unknown Reason



## Hiveshare (Oct 20, 2017)

Hi there,

I have a beehive and its just turned spring here. 

We've had an incredible honey flow, the hive was full of brood as was the super that was on it over winter. 

A week before I added another super, and the bees were busy extruding the wax sheets.

Then out of nowhere, there was a HUGE die-off. I'd say 3/4 of all the bees were dead, on the ground out the front. 

They would spend a lot of time just spinning around prior to dying, walking in circles. 

I opened the hive and cleared out a carpet of the dead bees, then removed the queen excluder. 

I've had the hive closed for a few days at a time, but every time I open it to reinspect, i find another host of dead bees out the front. 

There is a lot of honey, and when I open it at night the beehive appears strong, and like it is getting stronger as well. So I'm thinking I just want to leave it closed for a week and see what happens? 

Any idea as to what could cause such a mass die off in spring? 

The brood looks fine, the frames look fine. Each of the frames had 10 to 20 dead bees embedded in them, but I'm really unsure as to what is happening. If it was poisoned by insecticide, I would have thought the die off would be complete. I'm thinking that there might be robbing going on and that the colony is trying to fight off robbers? But the nectar flow is so strong. 

Any help or comments are appreciated.


----------



## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

Pesticide


----------



## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

Hiveshare said:


> If it was poisoned by insecticide, I would have thought the die off would be complete.


Maybe not poisoned by insecticide but for fungicide or herbicide.

"A. Bee-poisoning symptoms

Honeybees react differently to different pesticides, and most herbicides and fungicides are less toxic to bees than are insecticides. To the beekeeper, the most obvious sign of pesticide poisoning is the presence of an exceptional number of dead bees in front of the hives. The following figures have been established as guidelines for assessing the extent of pesticide poisoning: 100 dead bees per day is the colony's normal death rate; 200-400 dead bees indicate a low level of pesticide poisoning; 500-1000 dead bees indicate a medium level of pesticide poisoning; over 1000 dead bees indicate a high level of pesticide poisoning." source: http://www.fao.org/docrep/x0083e/X0083E09.htm


----------



## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

>I'd say 3/4 of all the bees were dead, on the ground out the front. 
>They would spend a lot of time just spinning around prior to dying, walking in circles. 

Sounds like pesticide. Determine the cause then you might be able to prevent it in the future. A crops, mosquito, Japanese's beetles or a disgruntled neighbor seem to be the most common. 

Sounds like the dead are fewer every day and the brood is emerging healthy? You may be past the worst of it, and this could be cause they were confined. 

Closing a hive can be dangerous, I would relocated the hive until you can determine the cause and prevent it. If there is any doubt I would set a game camera and a motion detector on your hive. Of the list above disgruntled neighbors is at the top of the list for the back yard beekeepers.


----------



## Hiveshare (Oct 20, 2017)

My concern now is for the honey. If it HAS been posioned with a herbicide, are those frames still fit for consumption? 

Will the beeswax concentrate the herbicide? (I know some of them are fat soluble)


----------



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Hiveshare said:


> If it HAS been posioned with a herbicide, are those frames still fit for consumption?
> 
> Will the beeswax concentrate the herbicide? (I know some of them are fat soluble)


unless the hive reeks with a strong chemical odor that's almost impossible to know without expensive lab tests.

about all you can do is keep an eye on the hive for now. check to see if the queen is still there and laying. the emerging brood will replenish the dead bees to some degree. 

my thinking is that if the honey and/or the wax is badly tainted the colony may abscond the hive. robbers might tend to shy away from it as well.

i agree that you shouldn't close the hive as that would prevent the removal of the dead bees as well as keep a dying bee from flying off and removing itself from the hive.

if it is poisoning and with so many dying it seems more likely that the hive was sprayed vs. something the bees picked up in the field.

does your district have a bee inspector who could come and check it out for you?


----------



## Hiveshare (Oct 20, 2017)

No odour squarepeg, but I do live near a drainage reserve, so I have asked the council if they sprayed anything recently. 

Thanks for the advice, I have opened the hive again. The entrace was blocked with dead bees. 

Now the die off is slowing down, I only see about 30 bees spinning around on the ground today but the colony isn't foraging, even though there's a lot of bees in the hive now. 

I'll give it a few more days and see what's what and let everyone know. Thanks for all your advice!


----------



## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Now the foragers are mostly dead. 
Remaining inside are the young nurse bees, newly emerged bees or the cap broods. This will severely
weaken the hive of course. Now is also the time to insert a robber screen on to prevent any future robbing. A
hive without the guard bees will be defenseless I am sure. 

Depending on how deadly the pesticides are you have to move it to another safer location. This way the hive
will have a chance of rebuilding after the poison. A drainage will have all kinds of environmental contamination
that your bees will visit to collect. You'll never know what people or industrial waste product will be dump in there.


----------



## Hiveshare (Oct 20, 2017)

beepro said:


> Now the foragers are mostly dead.
> 
> Thanks beepro. I was also thinking, there are a fair few empty frames in the brood box. What do you think about replacing these with stickies, just in case there is residual pesticide in them?


----------



## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

This is a sure way to help this hive out.
1. Removed all affected nectar, pollen and honey frames. These you 
cannot use either for yourself or for another hive because they
are consider poisoned already. Feeding to another hive will get them dead too.
You have no choice but to throw them away. 

2. Find some healthy hives in your bee yard. For every frame that you take
from this poisoned hive, replaced it all with the frames from these healthy hives. You might want to cage the queen too if you want to make a nuc hive out of it when adding the foreign bees from other hives. If not then just replacing with the clean frames without the attaching bees will be fine. Make sure that there are enough worker bees to cover the new eggs when the queen is laying again. Make sure to find the live queen in there before making the adjustment to the hive. Make sure they have open nectar/pollen and cap brood frames from the clean hives.

3. This is the most important. You have to move this hive out of the poisoned area. Other hives might find the source of the contamination too. So be on a look out for other hives health over time also if you don't want to move them out of this area. Every time there is a bee poison, moving the hive out of the affected area will help them out tremendously. They will recovered much faster in a clean foraging area than the poisoned one. So find them a nice clean area to start a fresh with plenty of local forage. Hopefully they will recover after a few months.


----------

