# Certain cause of death



## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

I lost an occasional colony in pre-mite days (1970's), almost always it was during the winter, starvation most likely from what I can remember. When I took those deadouts apart they were full of dead bees, headfirst in the cells, bees packed between the frames, 6-7 frames worth at least, thousands of dead bees on the bottom board.

Fast forward to today. My losses now are significantly different in many ways. Booming colonies during the spring and summer, great honey production. Then, starting in September, those same colonies experience a rapid decline in population to the point where many are dead by November, and the few stronger ones make it till December or early January. When I take those colonies apart, there is the equivalent of about a softball size amount of bees at best, and yes the queen is usually there too. The dead cluster is almost always on food when they died. 

So what's different now? The mite population climbs in the fall compared to the bee population that declines, the mites parasitize the bees and drive the population down rapidly to the point where the cluster is so small going into winter that they cannot generate the heat to stay alive in the cold climate that we have here. Its pretty simple, the mite has changed everything, believe it.


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## Dave Burrup (Jul 22, 2008)

Joseph I wish I had the results you and other non-treaters have. Maybe if I did I could accept your thinking. In my local it is simple, a hive with mites dies, a hive that does not have mites lives. It is just that simple. I have bought a bunch of mite resistant bees over the years. Some of them definitely had some tolerance levels. Some were just disasters. The majority were just right down the middle of the road. Without mites, in our area beekeeping would be simple. 
Dave


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Joseph Clemens said:


> So what were we blaming all our losses on, before we had Varroa?


Diseases such as AFB, EFB, viruses, pests like bears and skunks, and starvation. Those were the things that killed bees before Varroa/virus.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

I have kept bees pre 1985 when the critters first appeared here in the U.S. Anyone who has can truly remember the good old days!
we has an occasional bout of AFB, Or chock brood in the area that caused alarm. But overall it was different. I tell a lot of entry level beekeepers that it was back when beekeeping was easy. Many a beekeeper set up a hive and pretty much left it alone. When they saw signs of a problem only then did they take action. Varroa and Small hive beetles simply were not here to deal with. Wax moths could be a problem, but a good strong colony could easily keep them in check. Since the introduction of Varroa , and SHB every beekeeper must take a more proactive roll in beekeeping. Therefore it would be reasonable to assume that the pressures they place the population of a hive assuredly take a toll on the hives longevity. 
That being said I do tend to agree that Varroa get a greater blame in the equation of colony failure than they actually guilty of. Yes, They do play a role in any colony failure , However so do many other factors, some that the bees have dealt with for centuries. 

I do not think that every colony that has mites is doomed, nor do I think that every colony has mites. I have inspected man that are completely mite free! for how long who knows. 

There has to be some measure of management be it a natural approach, or a scientific one. for bees to continue under human husbandry, we must follow some sort of logical regiment. The division will be how much time one has, or desires to put into managing and or caring for the bees.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Keep your mites in check in whatever way you feel is personally proper and losses will be minimal and attributable to other causes such as starvation and disease.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Joe: Good questions and observations. Having kept bees long before varroa here are my experiences pre varroa.
Yes some years our losses were pretty high. We used mostly packages and southern queens and wintered most on location in South Dakota. Late summer dearths followed by severe winters would take their toll. We had no regular requeening schedule so drone layers were pretty common to see. AFB was a serious problem as well as were insecticides such as Penncap, and parathion, just to name a couple and a highly unregulated farming culture where virtually any chemical could be purchased and applied by any farmer or rancher. 
We always hauled 4 to 500 south each fall to split and supplement our packages. It used to be almost any hive you moved down south in the fall would be a boomer by late March. Now that we are palletized we move them all but don't necessarily end up with hives as good as those wintered up north pre varroa. 
Perhaps one needed to experience beekeeping pre varroa to understand the profound change that varroa brought to beekeeping. Many operations went out of business many others took desperate measures. Beekeepers weren't given many tools to work with though. Government agencies talked more about what we shouldn't do than what we could.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Aha, I think I'm finally realizing what's going on with my bees and Varroa. 

As many others have mentioned, most of my hives in late summer/early autumn have their populations drop drastically. This could, quite possibly, be due to Varroa. I believe that if my local winter temperatures were any colder than they are, I'd likely lose many more colonies to what would look like starvation.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

When you are present at every fatality. you are no longer an innocent bystander.
Ass for what came before. I have reading in one old book the comment that bees did not have much in the way of diseases. Langstroth comment quite a bit about concerns for the wax moth. other than that it was overwintering ventilation and starvation as far as I can tell.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

DanielY,
Maybe the reason why diseases weren't noticed as a problem and wax moths were could be the actual level of knowledge and recognition of the diseases. I don't have my Diseases,Pests, and Predators book handy, but I am sure there is a time when AFB was recognized. Before that hives may have died from AFB or EFB and then wax moths destroyed the combs and got the blame for killing the colony when it was the disease that caused the death.

People today blame wax moth when wax moth are actually an indicator of a problem, not the problem itself.


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## Honey-4-All (Dec 19, 2008)

sqkcrk said:


> People today blame wax moth when wax moth are actually an indicator of a problem, not the problem itself.


I also have heard this "blame the wax moth" comment more often than you would believe. It's just a statement based in ignorance of bees and their "predators." 

Not wanting to step into the evolution vs creation debate here but I am a firm believer that whatever path you believe on those subjects the wax moths were either created or "developed" as one of the best methods to clean up combs that are either diseased or are old enough to harbor pathogens that would be better turned into a pile of WM castings anyways......all for the safety of the neighborhood. :applause:

On one hand I hate the suckers but on the other hand I understand their purpose in keeping us off of the "chem" trail. 

The logical conclusion of this makes me think that if I had the funds to do so I would "dispose" of ever comb I ever build on its 7th anniversary.

Out of here.......... time to do my part to up the anti in the global warming debate and burn some frames........

Does anyone know if frames over 7 years old fit into the category of "fossil fuels?" :s

Guess i'm gonna have to ask my local state senator to write a bill giving my "breaks" for reducing global warming when I let the wax moths eat them instead of burning them. Any other local beeks up for taking a trip to Sacramento to "wax" the palms of those who can get this done?


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

> Does anyone know if frames over 7 years old fit into the category of "fossil fuels?" :s

In my book, _wooden _frames and beeswax & cocoons are "renewable" fuel sources. Use the correct wood in your replacement frames, and you too can be "_certified_".


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## TalonRedding (Jul 19, 2013)

This may be a really ignorant question, but what if taking the majority of honey stores causes the rapid decline? For instance, if my family was gathering the food necessary to support "x" amount of members, new members came and gathered "x" amount of food to support another "x" amount of members, and then all of a sudden the food was taken away. Wouldn't it be a natural reaction for my household to lose a substantial number of members?
I wonder if leaving a super of honey on top of them at honey harvest would perhaps lead to a different outcome? Honey is their natural food, not sugar syrup. Of course, bees also decline in response to a declining nectar flow due to brood reduction. 
I'm sure mites and the other notorious pests compound the problem, but leaving honey for them instead of harvesting it all is just a thought.
Please, don't blow me out of the water.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

Joseph Clemens said:


> Aha, I think I'm finally realizing what's going on with my bees and Varroa.
> 
> As many others have mentioned, most of my hives in late summer/early autumn have their populations drop drastically. This could, quite possibly, be due to Varroa. I believe that if my local winter temperatures were any colder than they are, I'd likely lose many more colonies to what would look like starvation.


If its not varroa causing the drastic drop, what is it? All colonies experience adult population decrease in the fall as a result of dearth and queen slowdown, but its the sudden and uncontrolled downward death spiral that I see so often at that time of year. Its simply not normal. A hive with no queen problems should not go from a single deep and 4-5 mediums stuffed full of bees to the top in July, down to just a couple frames of bees in the deep in a couple months, and then proceed to completely die off by late November/early December regardless of how well provisioned they are. I see this repeat itself over and over every year. Most of my hives are not surviving for a full 12 months from start to finish. No, I don't treat. My opinion is that we are losing the battle against the varroa mite. I used to be able to keep hives alive for 2-3 years without any treatment. When I read on the forum about all the losses that parallel mine lately, I can only think that varroa is evolving into a much worse enemy than we originally thought it to be, and at the same time the honey bee is offering much less resistance to the mites effects. Double trouble.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

While I had a few colonies of bees in 1969, I was a serious hobby beekeeper from 1976 until tracheal mites wiped me out in 1988. I bought some bees and got some Buckfast queens until varroa wiped me out again in 1993. I also had to burn colonies for AFB, saw chalkbrood a few times, found EFB in one colony, and stone brood (fungal disease) in another. The major hurdle to beekeeping pre-1985 was AFB. It could be controlled with terramycin so most beekeepers just treated in the fall and ignored it otherwise. Honey crops were far more reliable because it was easy to keep bees alive. I could set out a dozen empty boxes in early spring and catch a dozen swarms from feral colonies.

So how are things different today? Well, I don't have to worry about AFB. I haven't seen it since about 1995 or so when I helped a friend inspect and re-queen some colonies. We burned a large colony of bees that day and buried the remains deep. What happened to AFB? Feral colonies were wiped almost entirely out by varroa which eliminated disease being brought into my managed colonies from the ferals. The guy with AFB in 1995 had purchased some bees in very old equipment pre-dating varroa by at least 10 years. I keep an eye out for diseases as I work my bees, but have not seen anything in the intervening years.

I have varroa tolerant bees now so varroa is not on my radar screen.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Keep in mind that if we track the growth of a colony of bees in a hive over a year and then also the growth of the population of the varroa mites in a hive and you graphed both you would see two arches running somewhat parellel to each other. And along w/ the varroa mites, nosema spores and viruses gaining a foothold and growing in numbers, doing their damage.

So seeing growth in brood and adult population numbers and then what appears to be quick decline is what should be expected, considering the effects of the stressors of mites, viruses, nosema, and pests like SHBs place on a colony of honeybees.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

"What happened to AFB? Feral colonies were wiped almost entirely out by varroa which eliminated disease being brought into my managed colonies from the ferals."

Varroa wipes out colonies before AFB gets a chance to do its work. I suspect.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

Honey-4-All said:


> Does anyone know if frames over 7 years old fit into the category of "fossil fuels?" :s


looking at all the articles recently I would think they would be considered hazardous waste, and you would need placards on your truck to move them


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Crediting the virtual disappearance of AFB to varroa is an interesting theory. The timeline does seem to match up pretty closely and yes wax moth would in fact render the remaining comb uninhabitable. Hmmmmmm. Interesting. My hatred of wax moth is beginning to dissipate somewhat.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

W/ the abandonment of apiaries by some commercial outfits not finding someone to take over for them and by hobbyists giving up over frustration over continuous losses seems like there aught to be more AFB out there. But, maybe varroa kills the bees leaving the comb to wax shb and wax moth to clean up.


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## camero7 (Sep 21, 2009)

I try to keep varroa in check and find that most of my losses can be attributed to beekeeper error, a/k/a PPBK


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

I now wonder, if Varroa commonly instigate drastic drops in late season honey bee populations, then, in cold climates, they are unable to thermoregulate, and expire. But that wouldn't explain Michael Bush, and other treatment free beekeepers, also keeping bees in cold climates. Some factors are still somewhat mysterious.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

I would suspect that any such thing as the above would be a sliding scale of temperatures any cluster can withstand. A smaller cluster not being able to withstand colder temperatures.

So what is it around 40 degrees that stops a bee cold. it's body functions stop? I think it is somewhere in that neighborhood. So any cluster of bees must be able to keep itself as a whole above that critical temperature.

Is is reasonable to think a larger cluster could do so against lower temperatures.

In actual practice I have seen some very tiny clusters withstand temperatures well below 40 degrees. I cannot image them being able to keep their temperature much above the ambient temperature but other factors clearly indicate they not only can but did.

So between what I would think and what I have seen lies a lot of not knowing anything. But it really seems to me that a lot of these winter losses are actually freezing. but how the bees got to the point that they would freeze is variable.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

This study measures the temperature of the bee's bodies, rather than the air temperature, but does support the idea that if the bee's _thorax _temperature falls below 9-11 degrees C (about 50 degrees F), they can no longer shiver to generate heat and will fall off the cluster.

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/206/2/353.full.pdf


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## D Semple (Jun 18, 2010)

Joseph Clemens said:


> Aha, I think I'm finally realizing what's going on with my bees and Varroa.
> 
> As many others have mentioned, most of my hives in late summer/early autumn have their populations drop drastically. This could, quite possibly, be due to Varroa.* I believe that if my local winter temperatures were any colder than they are, I'd likely lose many more colonies to what would look like starvation.*


Joseph - Maybe explains your lack of losses the first winter, but what keeps your hives from being overwhelmed by varroa the 2nd or 3rd year? Shouldn't they inevitably crash?



Don


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Daniel Y said:


> So what is it around 40 degrees that stops a bee cold. it's body functions stop? I think it is somewhere in that neighborhood. So any cluster of bees must be able to keep itself as a whole above that critical temperature.


Daniel, the way I understand it, when an individual bees' temperature gets below 45 degrees that bee losses muscle control and, if flying, will fall.

If a cluster is of enough a size it generates a core temperature of close to 98 degrees and the bees on the outside will maintain a temperature above 45 degrees. If they can't, eventually the cluster size will diminish putting the whole cluster in jeopardy.


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## julysun (Apr 25, 2012)

I had three/four hives in the early eighties and quit because of the alarm over the Africanized bee, At that time I read the bee journals and Steve Taber and all the worry then was foul brood and wax moths. Mr Taber and others developed the freeze kill method to find hygienic bees. I bought some bees from him. His company still sells bees but now the big deal is treatment free. I have bought some of those bees also.
Two years ago I started beekeeping again, all the talk was about mites, little was written about the foulbroods. 
Times and alarms change. Thankfully we have serious bee men working the problem and writing here and elsewhere!


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

Joseph Clemens said:


> I now wonder, if Varroa commonly instigate drastic drops in late season honey bee populations, then, in cold climates, they are unable to thermoregulate, and expire. But that wouldn't explain Michael Bush, and other treatment free beekeepers, also keeping bees in cold climates. Some factors are still somewhat mysterious.


I know MB loses bees in winter just like everyone else, he has said so. The difference is his losses are due to other factors besides varroa, at least that's what I gather from his statements. I don't exactly recall if he see's many mites in his hives, dead or alive, however I believe he said he has witnessed DWV occasionally, so the mites are indeed there, but apparently not in high enough numbers to cause the abnormal sudden population drop like I experience with my TF hives starting in September and afterwards.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I know MB loses bees in winter just like everyone else, he has said so. The difference is his losses are due to other factors besides varroa, at least that's what I gather from his statements.

I always look for evidence of Varroa. I can usually find a few Varroa (sometimes I can't find any at all) but I would have trouble finding a dozen Varroa on the bottom board of one of my winter losses. A bad winter losses could run to 50%. A good winter they could be as low as 10%. But I also stopped combining the small ones in the fall and try to winter them now, which increases the % losses while increasing the number of colonies I have next spring. But that's really counting nucs and colonies and the nuc losses are worse in a bad winter.

>I don't exactly recall if he see's many mites in his hives, dead or alive, however I believe he said he has witnessed DWV occasionally, so the mites are indeed there, but apparently not in high enough numbers to cause the abnormal sudden population drop like I experience with my TF hives starting in September and afterwards. 

DWV has been around for as long as there have been bees as far as anyone can tell. Varroa just spread it faster. I have not seen any significant number of deformed wings since regressing but yes I see an occasional deformed wing.


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