Lost my split hive

[swampcat]

Was feeding bees this morning and notice no action at all from the June split.. and when I opened it up no bees to speak of on the frames..

lots of dead bees on the bottom board, and I know many are just missing..

Took the hive apart it was all robbed out..wax moths were just starting to take over.. so I cut all the wax out and boiled it, cleaned the frames and they are going to soak in some bleach in a trash can..

well now if I catch a swarm I will have equipment to hive it in.. so its not a bad thing.. and I learned a lesson about robbing bees.. In the dearth feed them..I was a little late to start feeding the bees..

[Brad H.]

Bummer! Live and learn as they say!

[pokeyjeeper]

Wow that sucks sorry for your loss cat

[old243]

Sorry to hear you lost your split. Did you move your split a small distance or a long distance? Did you reduce your entrance size , so they could protect it. Did the split have a queen, is it possible they moved, absconded. Had the brood hatched out , or was it abandoned. Just questions to figure out what happened.

I did a split, moved the queen, about 15 feet, lots of brood , honey and pollen. This was 2 months ago , they are now strong. Queen is pissy. The hive that it was split from , had a queen cell , they raised a new one. Hope she is nicer than her mother. Interesting  stuff .

The bees are really packing the honey in, our goldenrod is just about ready to flower, Soon be fall. Old243

[swampcat]

Aug 7, 2017 21:08:19 GMT -5 old243 said:

Sorry to hear you lost your split. Did you move your split a small distance or a long distance? Did you reduce your entrance size , so they could protect it. Did the split have a queen, is it possible they moved, absconded. Had the brood hatched out , or was it abandoned. Just questions to figure out what happened.

I did a split, moved the queen, about 15 feet, lots of brood , honey and pollen. This was 2 months ago , they are now strong. Queen is pissy. The hive that it was split from , had a queen cell , they raised a new one. Hope she is nicer than her mother. Interesting  stuff .

The bees are really packing the honey in, our goldenrod is just about ready to flower, Soon be fall. Old243

I had a hive with two brood boxes and supers on it, so I just took half about 6 foot away. I was concerned bout it being so close and the forager bees did leave but there were lots of brood and they did made a queen cell. I never found a queen in it or new worker brood, mostly spotty drone cells.. I was thinking to buy a queen but because we had family visiting (Army family) I put it off till after they were to leave. I noticed robbing going on and I'm sure the main cause of failure was the robbing. Nothing was left as far as nectar or honey, it had a good supply of both and bees.. When I took it apart I saw a few wax moth larva, so I cut out all the wax and melted it. I am going to soak the frames in a bleach solution to finish cleaning the equipment. The bottom board was covered with dead bees, I believe many just left as it was pretty strong hive, I did restrict the entrance for a few days until the bees calmed down, but it wasn't enough it seems.

I know it was a gamble. Sounds like you did about the same thing and it worked out well for you..

I should have been quicker on getting a queen and feeding the other hives.. The robbing hive was the one i had harvested honey from, I may have taken to much. I did that because I was borrowing extracting equipment and wanted to get all I could at one time instead of just taking a little..