Worldwide Beekeeping

Beekeeping => General Beekeeping => Topic started by: Yankee11 on January 18, 2015, 09:54:35 pm

Title: I looked at 2 hives today that were empty..
Post by: Yankee11 on January 18, 2015, 09:54:35 pm

A lady that bought 2 nucs from me this past spring told me yesterday that she opened the tops and they both were empty. She asked me to come take a look.

I saw 2 deeps on each hive. the upper deep had all 10 frames full of capped honey. Lower deep was some open comb, lots of pollen and some honey. they looked great. No bees, a hand full of dead bees on the bottom screen. Comb looked good. no signes of SHB or wax moths, everything looked normal just empty. She said they looked great going into winter and boxes were full of bees.

What the heck is going on..

Title: Re: I looked at 2 hives today that were empty..
Post by: Jen on January 18, 2015, 10:23:13 pm

Absconded for whatever reason? Or the Colony Collapse where bees just vanish?

And ya know what I feel? I feel like when you find a pile of dead bees... it's better than finding No Bees! At least you can try and figure out what happened.

Title: Re: I looked at 2 hives today that were empty..
Post by: pistolpete on January 18, 2015, 11:17:41 pm

sounds exactly like what was discussed in the "high winter losses" thread you started recently.  I don't think anyone had an answer there either.