Author Topic: Dead Hive?  (Read 2324 times)

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Offline brooksbeefarm

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Dead Hive?
« on: April 16, 2014, 10:02:41 am »
Found a deadout in one of my outyards,not much stores left. The strange thing is that 5 frames (med. brood box) had a cluster of dead bees a little bigger than a fist on both sides of each frame straight across from each other on all 5 frames and had ate the comb out in front of them. They were wet looking and beginning to smell, the inside of the hive was dry? Two of the frames had dead emerging brood under and around the clusters, the other 3 frames just had dead clusters but no sign of brood that they might have tried to cover and no head first bees in the frame? I'm wondering why the clusters on the 3 frames wasn't clustered with the two frames that had brood and stayed on the frames with no brood or stores? I'm thinking they froze, but if the bees on the 3 empty frames had clustered with the two covering brood they probably would have made it through??? Any thoughts? Jack
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Offline DonMcJr

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Re: Dead Hive?
« Reply #1 on: April 16, 2014, 11:33:38 am »
Two clusters might have meant a double queen?
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Offline LazyBkpr

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Re: Dead Hive?
« Reply #2 on: April 16, 2014, 12:52:21 pm »
Thats a tough one...   My only thought was that they got separated and got caught in the cold..  frozen bees will be damp, wet and moldy.
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