# massive numbers of dead bees under hive - varroa suspected



## Axtmann (Dec 29, 2002)

Without a treatment you will bring the mite into the next hive. Your combining candidate will kill your stronger hive in a few weeks. 

I would treat ALL hives the same time if it’s not already too late for them to survive.


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

I would NOT combine. And yes, please protect from robbing.

Not to add insult to injury, but have you done any previous (during summer) mites counts on this hive?


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## Karen Amelia (Oct 4, 2009)

I admit I was laissez faire with this hive - I had heard local beekeepers talking about not treating for mites and letting only the resistant ones survive. So I thought I'd see if this hive could hold its own without my doing anything for mites. I guess this is the lesson learned - it's grisly. Also, I imagine there's robbing going on right now, but other than stopping down the entrance, as I've already done, what steps can I take to protect this weak colony from robbing?


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

I'm thinking the few bees left will perish as soon as it gets and stays cold (about Xmas, I'd guess). After all are dead, close up hive as tight as possible or move it to a protected place (inside a building).


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## Maine_Beekeeper (Mar 19, 2006)

Karen - 
Your pile of dead bees is reflective of the time of year and the colony size which is now rapidly shrinking. 
Unlike in Spring and Summer, you now have many more bees dying each day than being born. (and many more dying bees than the house bees can clean out due to temperature restraints)

Aside from the lack of mite treatment (and it is not too late to try, I'd suggest Apilife Var right up close to the cluster) you may still be able to save this colony. 
The biggest mistake I am seeing is the lack of bottom board and I think your post says you now have a screened bottom board on with an entrance reducer. 
That is good. 
Never leave a colony with no bottom at all - while that "sounds" natural, think about it - bees would never pick a location that was so indefensible to robbers if they had a choice.

If your hive is super light, consider wintering them with 10lbs or so of dry sugar on the top bars held by newspaper. Not my first choice by far, but it can be the difference between life and death for a light colony. 

Learning is tough, but if you do learn the lesson, all is better for it. 
Best, 
-Erin


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

I am not even certain you have a problem beyond not thinking a hive might need some kind of bottom board/screen to protect the contents and inhabitants of the hive.

Could the large number of bees be related to the expulsion of drones and perhaps the exposure of brood at the bottom of the frames to a sudden cold snap? With no bottom board/screen you would expect some accumulation of varroa (dead, live or whatever). With nothing to protect the bottom of the frames I would first think that the large pile of dead bees could also be associated with robbing.

I think??? some folks are ASSUMING you have a large varroa problem and therefore their warning in regards to combining is no better than their assumption (may be true but may be false).


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## LSPender (Nov 16, 2004)

Was the hive in an area of comeercial raised corn or Sunflour? This is one of the sign of sub-lethal doses of pestisides, ie. Neonicitoides.


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## Karen Amelia (Oct 4, 2009)

I can't imagine the number of bees that died (in the thousands, easily) was the same in all my hives and that the other two hives managed to carry that many away. I don't think it was robbing - they have more stores than my other hives. And when I scooped up a handful of dead bees (adults and larvae), my hand was dotted with mites. It could have been partly mites and partly a cold snap. But then I don't know how to assess if what remains will be enought to get through the winter. I'm planning to combine this hive with another - I haven't heard any negatives to combining ( and I can divide in the spring if they make it through), and I am too new to know how to assess the size of a population to know if they'll make it through the winter. Any drawbacks to combining hives?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Many things can kill a hive this time of year. Tracheal mites, Varroa mites, starvation, robbing. I'd look for as many actual symptoms as you can. If you have a solid bottom board or a tray, then look for dead Varroa. If they died from Varroa (indirectly) then there will be thousands of dead Varroa along with the thousands of dead bees. Also you'll see Varroa feces in the brood cells. You may also see a lot of deformed wings. Tracheal mites usually cause them to not cluster and crawl a lot. Often they seem to have dysentery along with the crawling. They also often have a lot of "K" wing bees. With starvation you have a lot of bees dead on the bottom along with a lot head first in the cells and no stores. With robbing the cells are torn up instead of carefully opened.


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## Karen Amelia (Oct 4, 2009)

I suspect I had a combo of varroa and tracheal mites (symptoms of both match). I looked into one of the hives I wanted to combine yesterday. It was a small colony , no evidence of robbing unless bees were just coming to the top feeder and then departing with a load of syrup), and I couldn't bring myself to kill the queen. She was a great productive queen this year - filled many frames solid with brood, a young and new queen. So I couldn't bear to kill her, and yet I'm afraid the colony may be too small to overwinter. I only saw a max of four brood frames covered with bees. I cannot estimate what size of a cluster this equates to but it sounds like Italians need a lot of bees in the cluster.


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

Guess "we" need to monitor mites, and treat BEFORE we have problems 

If only 4 spaces BETWEEN frames were filled w/ bees, I'd say thats too small for Italians. Especially if they are in a 10-frame hive.

You could overwinter this weak colony using a DOUBLE SCREEN. It would allow you to keep both queens.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I suspect I had a combo of varroa and tracheal mites (symptoms of both match). 

No, the symptoms of both do not match. A "K" wing looks nothing like a deformed wing. Unclustered bees don't look like bees that died in a cluster. Varroa mites on the bottom board are visible. Tracheal mites are microscopic. Tracheal mites do not leave white specs of feces in the cells, Varroa do.


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## Karen Amelia (Oct 4, 2009)

Bad syntax: what I meant was that the bees exhibit symptoms described for both types of mites (i.e. there are some wandering around in the grass without flying and without deformities; some that hold their wings in the strange angle; some trying to fly and not being able to -tracheal - and numerous deformed wing specimens as well as lots of varroa mites themselves in the pile of dead bees under the hive. I doubt that one type of mite infestation precludes the other.


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

karen writes:
I doubt that one type of mite infestation precludes the other.

tecumseh:
exactly. I suspect on a lot of hives one pest vector would not cause a lot of problems but one problem often times leads to others and eventually the force of the muliple pest outweights a hive capacity to survive. on a great number of these pest or disease problems you will never see large numbers of dead bees anywhere near the hive since diseased bees almost always (there are of course exceptions) remove themselves from the nest to die.

I would still suspect (if in fact you had no bottom board on the hive?) that robbing was a signicant part of that pile of dead bees. Given the number of hives I have I have no doubt that some have t mites and some have v mites and some have both... and yet I have never seen a stack of dead bees (outside the front entrance since I use solid bottom boards) where robbing was not a major part of the problem. robbers seem quite gifted at recognizing hives with weakness (number, queens or whatever).

most time for me coming to some understanding about what is happening in regards to health issues of a hive generally means eliminating what ain't happening. thereby reducing the list of 'most likely suspects' to one or two suspect who mo most exactly fits the crime.


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## ToolBeeLady (Oct 13, 2009)

I had a massive die off and robbing. Lost my colony and not because of varoa mites. I did everything I was supposed to at the proper time. The bees had no mites..used apiguard, no nosema ..used fumagilin and treated with terramyacin. Called Texas A&M and am sending a sample to them to analyze. They seemed to think that someone was spraying in the area and the bees got into it. It is a Bummer.


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## ToolBeeLady (Oct 13, 2009)

I had a massive die off and robbing. Lost my colony and not because of varoa mites. I did everything I was supposed to at the proper time. The bees had no mites..used apiguard, no nosema ..used fumagilin and treated with terramyacin. Called Texas A&M and am sending a sample to them to analyze. They seemed to think that someone was spraying in the area and the bees got into it. It is a Bummer and so sad Next year will be better


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