# Need help diagnosing massive bee death



## Slow Drone (Apr 19, 2014)

Did you screen of the hole on the inner cover?


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

Yes, and my inner cover is on top of the screened quilt box anyway.


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## Dave Burrup (Jul 22, 2008)

what your pictures show does not look unusual to me. I see this on my hives also. The amount of dead bees in front of the hive is not excessive either. This time of the year the old foragers are dieing and they are throwing out drones. During the foraging the old bees die away from the hive, and you do not see the die off. This time of the year with longer nights and cooler temps more of the old bees die inside the hive and are thrown out in front of the hive where you see them. Some of the bees do not seem to figure out robber screens and you see them on the front of the screen on cool mornings.


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

Update: I couldn't wait and decided to open them up. I'm not seeing an unusually low number of bees. The top 2 deeps are full of honey, nectar and pollen. I saw maybe one frame that had brood larvae around honey. I'm hoping it's normal to not be seeing full frames of eggs like I was 2 months ago. I checked the 3 side frames in the very bottom brood box and even those are all honey. I do have A LOT of drones. Probably because I had slipped some foundationless frames in there, and my bottom deep is extra deep, so they've been drawing comb off the bottom bars of the frames, which are probably mostly drone cells. Yes, I learned my lesson  

I'll do more autopsies on the dead ones to see what fraction of them are drones and if I see any varroa. I saw just a few varroa on the bottom board.

Here are more pics:

http://imgur.com/a/PFUuk


Thanks all for the quick responses


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## Dave Burrup (Jul 22, 2008)

I would definitely like to see the top bars completely covered on one of my hives. Your hive population looks low to me unless you smoked them down into the frames. Have you checked your varroa numbers.


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

I understand they might be evacuating lots of drones and the old dead bees pile up, but I'm not seeing this by my other hive, which is albeit smaller, but still. Nor do I see it under the bee tree that's not too far away.


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

Dave Burrup said:


> I would definitely like to see the top bars completely covered on one of my hives. Your hive population looks low to me unless you smoked them down into the frames. Have you checked your varroa numbers.


Could be. I don't have much to compare to as this is my first year. I did smoke them since they were getting quite excited. Haven't done any mite counts. It's a Russian queen hive.


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

Found a queen cell in my other hive. Does this look like a supercedure or something else?


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

ABK said:


> Found a queen cell in my other hive. Does this look like a supercedure or something else?
> View attachment 27914


Looks like an emergency cell, but they might have made a cup right on the edge and she laid in it.
Were there eggs/larva in the rest of that colony?


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

I believe I saw larva that were pretty large and curled up, not sure how many days old that means. If this is an emergency cell due to queen death, is this a death sentence to the hive unless I bring in a new queen immediately?


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## pinkpantherbeekeeper (Feb 10, 2016)

Were there eggs?


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

I haven't seen any, but I did not inspect every single frame.


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

Here are a couple pics from today's inspection:
http://imgur.com/a/ZeQD1

More dead bees in front of hive. Kind of noticeably fewer bees in the hive as well. I do see some frames of honey that looks like they were recently uncapped. Flow is still on as I still see flowers in bloom, and I also have been feeding, so I'm not sure if it's expected for them to be uncapping frames.


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

About 40 degrees this morning. Quite a few bees sitting motionless on the robber screen. Can't be robbers as they've been sitting out there all night too. It's like they don't like the hive anymore so they sit outside? What's the deal?


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Just a comment re this morning's find: that's not a lot of bees on the outside of the robbing screen. It's likely related to the rapid cool down that occurred late in the day yesterday. Some got chilled before they could get inside. Or those may be drones which were denied entry.

I am just north of you (north of Albany) and it was warm in the morning but cooled off steadily here starting at mid-day, with cold light rain by 6 pm. I opened the few robber screens (pulled them off and set them against the hive entrance board) I had on yesterday around 5:45 pm to let late-arriving bees find their way inside to somewhere warm for the night with no delays. I put them back up again about an hour ago when everybody was still inside. (But a few annoying yellow jackets were already probing the defenses.)

Some of the chilled bees may revive.

I think we are at change point in the weather, not to cold winter, but to an autumnal pattern which will change things up for the bees' habits, too. Keep an eye peeled for different things that may be perfectly normal, just different from what you've been accustomed to so far.

Enj.


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

Appreciate your insight. Had our first frost this early morning. 

This hive I'm talking about has had loads of bees on the robber screen day and night for the last few weeks, also with thousands of dead bees in front of it. So I think the bees being on the outside at night has more to do with whatever problem they're having. The hive right beside it has a screen too and they don't have stragglers like that nor a pile of dead bees.


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

Also noticed that most of the dead bees have their tongues out. What's that mean?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Tongue sticking out means that they are freezing to death.
Sometimes a certain bee disease will do that to them too.
Not sure what bee diseases they have inside?
Could it be some kind of poisoning going on now?


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Dead bees FREQUENTLY have their tongues out. It does not mean they are freezing to death.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

So what caused the tongue to stick out then?
And what is your diagnosis of this situation, JW?


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

Just as an update. I shoveled about a quarter buckets worth of dead bees away a week ago and came back this weekend to find another several hundred dead in a pile in front of the hive again. 

Took the top off and found some bees dead on the frames
Top super had a few capped frames of honey and some uncapped with bees stuck in the cells head first dead. I've heard this means starvation but I don't see how since this is a 3+ deep hive.

After taking the 4th/top deep off, I started seeing some live bees. Taking the 3rd deep off, I started seeing a small cluster in the second deep and a growing growl of bees. It was silent like a dead hive just before this. I guess there's somewhat of a cluster there still. I saw 0 bees flying and surely thought the hive is dead.

It's worth mentioning that I have this colony a Russian queen this spring so I don't know If the Russians are known for some strict numbers reduction before winter and grinding activity to a halt in the fall? 

My other hive is just 2 deeps and they're still plenty active with no pile of dead bees in front.


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## BattenkillJB (May 9, 2012)

Last week I had two of my hives totally die. It started in a similar fashion. The only difference was that I saw massive robbing by both honeybees and hornets. These hives were going gangbusters all summer after making it through the upstate NY winter. My theory is that I waited to long to harvest the honey on these two hives in September. The frames I returned to the hives just attracted too much attention at a bad time. I think the just gave up, neglected the queen,,got battle weary and died. Amazing not one survivor. No sigh of disease or excessive mites (I OAV). Good luck I know how you feel.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

ABK said:


> Haven't done any mite counts. It's a Russian queen hive.


A likely cause.....not much to add. Russian, as in purchased from a certified Russian queen producer or a 'hybrid' from someone such as Hardeman/Kelley?


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

Sorry to hear about your loss. My numbers have been dwindling and activity is really low but I'm surprised to still see a cluster. I was ready to just take the hive apart and take the honey. I wonder if they'll plateau and survive the winter or is this a death sentence


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

beemandan said:


> A likely cause.....not much to add. Russian, as in purchased from a certified Russian queen producer or a 'hybrid' from someone such as Hardeman/Kelley?


Purchased from a guy who had surplus from a purchase from a certified breeder in Massachusetts somewhere. But I guess you can never be sure with bees. I looked through a lot of dead bees and haven't found a single varroa on any of them or any chewed up wings. They all seem to have their tongues out.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

ABK said:


> I looked through a lot of dead bees and haven't found a single varroa on any of them


I may go through a couple of dozen hives on any given day and never see one.....and I know what I'm looking for. Yet...I can assure you that even in those healthy hives....before treating....there will be thousands of the little monsters.


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

I believe it. I've seen some on the bottom board, but it was the same in my other hive that is still healthy now. Are my symptoms indicative of death from varroa?


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

ABK said:


> I've seen some on the bottom board, but it was the same in my other hive that is still healthy now. Are my symptoms indicative of death from varroa?


I would say that not having any sort of objective measure, with an untreated colony of bees, varroa would be a serious consideration....in my opinion.
Simply because this hive failed first is no indication that the currently healthy appearing colony won't follow.


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