#deadout

GONE TO THAT GREAT HIVE IN THE SKY

I’ve been putting of this post off for some time. But I can’t delay any longer. Here’s the news, and it’s not good:

We’ve had a complete dead-out. Every single hive. Peeking inside, it looks like an icy version of Pompeii. Few bees, but those are there, are frozen in midlife. Poor Swarm Hive was trying to raise new queens.

What happened? The honest answer is we’re not sure. Perhaps we were too late in treating for varroa. Perhaps, it was the bitter winter  —  the coldest in Philadelphia for several years. Or a combination of things. So we’ve gone from being “bee havers” (almost bee keepers) to “bee haders.” Such is life, or in this case death. Cue the requiem music.

DEAD LOW  

Low Hive is dead. And “dead low” is certainly a good description of how we’re feeling after discovering it.

We know it’s an odd time of year for hive inspections. But a blast of freakishly warm (70˚F/22˚C) February weather this weekend in Philadelphia, gave us a rare window of opportunity and we opened our hives. We started with Low Hive — the problem child — and made the discovery no beekeeper wants to make: It was empty. Well... empty of bees. (It was full of honey and signs of varroa infestation!)

The other hives showed signs of life, like this flying squadron banking into Stryohive. But looks can be deceiving, so before we opened the other two, we ran downstairs for powered sugar and a Mason jar to do a sugar roll. 

As we feared, the results of the sugar roll were not great. Styrohive had 12 mites per half cup of bees. High hive had 16. So are these just “dead hives walking?” Was there anything we could do?  

Davey and I stood on the roof and talked it over. We had to do something. The only thing we had handy was a pack of Hopguard strips we’d bought almost by chance during the Philadelphia Bee Symposium. The directions say it can be applied “throughout the year.” 

So we put on latex gloves, tore open the foil pack and slid the oily strips into the brood nests of both hives. Will it make any difference? We surely don’t know. But we hope.