Any casualties yet?

[Jon]

I have lost a couple of nucs already.
These were ones I had marked as probably too weak to survive when I did a check in mid October. They were about 2 frames of bees at that stage, nucs made up late August which never got a chance to build up in the relentless rain..
One of them had a little cluster of bees and the queen like one of Doris' fantasy football CCD colonies - so I tipped them into an apidea for the time being. The other was the one which I reported last weekend had a visit by a rat which had chewed through a couple of combs.
I really should have combined a few of these weaker nucs a while back but they all have new queens and I was reluctant to squash any.
I guess I should consider it as natural selection in action.
I reckon I will find a couple more casualties when I apply the oxalic shortly.
Some people might get a shock if they have not checked the bees since the late summer thymol treatment.
I see elsewhere Murray McG is predicting a bad winter and I would concur with that as clusters seem smaller than usual. Some are likely to dwindle to nothing and there will likely be a few queen failures as well.
last winter was brilliant. I only lost one basket case nuc and most local beekeepers had very few losses.
this winter looks like being a lot tougher.
I probably tried to increase too much from 17 to well over 30 but I met a guy in Stirling had increased from 20 to 60 this year. Wonder how his are doing?

[fatshark]

Midday tomorrow has 8 degrees and "sunny periods" predicted so I'll get round mine and look for activity, but won't open them until the OA in a fortnight or so. Very cold here yesterday - 7 below as I went to the airport (and much warmer when I arrived in Edinburgh!) - which might have hammered the really small clusters. Mini nucs are racked in the just-frost-free greenhouse ...

[Jon]

Found another casualty today when I treated 11 colonies with Oxalic.
This was also one I had marked down as very weak in mid october.
It only had about 500 bees and a queen in the top corner of a couple of frames and they had died of a combination of cold and isolation starvation - near a little patch of sealed brood.
I didn't have my camera with me but it was a perfect illustration of how a small colony can starve in cold weather with stores nearby.
Might try and get a picture tomorrow.
The others I treated, which were mostly nucs, were about as strong as I expected them to be and I would expect them to overwinter ok apart from one which is 50/50 to make it at this point.

[nemphlar]

Treated 7 of them yesterday with sublimated ox, 1 hive and 2nucs were trickle with ox these are in the front garden and was more about not freaking out the neighbours appearing in my goggles and gas filter. At 5'c they were all quite lively I'll hold off making predictions till April

[gavin]

Treated 7 of them yesterday with sublimated ox, 1 hive and 2nucs were trickle with ox these are in the front garden and was more about not freaking out the neighbours appearing in my goggles and gas filter. At 5'c they were all quite lively I'll hold off making predictions till April

At 5C our neighbours are usually quite quiet!

All ready and raring to go, but a wee chest infection has kept me away from the bees, and today we were in Edinburgh ...

[greengumbo]

Went to put some extra fondant on last week due to the freezing overnight temps. The previous one hasn't been touched and there were bees alive underneath.

[gavin]

Sounds rather like the volume I've used but I wasn't trusting my memory. I doubt that the volume is critical anyway.

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[fatshark]

We've had temperatures consistently below zero for a week now and over a foot of snow ... some of my mini-nucs were feeling disconcertingly light so I sneaked a very quick look this afternoon. All OK. Stores seem fine and despite the temperature - exactly zero - there were bees feeding on fondant in the homebuilt Kieler frame feeders. On the very coldest nights I've moved a pile of these (very gently) into a just-frost-free greenhouse (alongside the overwintering agaves). I then move them back outside at 7am for the day.

The weather looks set to break at the weekend but it will be some time until we're in the clear and I know the Q's haven't turned out to be drone layers. For some reason I think this trait only becomes evident when the Q starts ramping up egg laying in the Spring, rather than during the sporadic laying overwinter. Is this right?

[Mellifera Crofter]

No! None. Eleven hives went into winter and eleven are still there (for now). I arrived back in Scotland on Friday and went straight to my hives to check on the food situation, and thought I've lost a hive. No sign of life, cold crownboard ... It was a cold day, so I didn't open it to check just in case there might be life - and today I saw there is. They're alive and coming and going and collecting pollen from heaven knows where like all the other hives.
Kitta

[chris]

That's excellent news Kitta. I think that when it gets very cold, the bees can go into a sort of comatose state. Best left completely alone. I haven't checked mine since October, but that's because of too much snow for me to wade through. I don't think I'll discover the damage (or hopefully otherwise) until about the end of March if this weather continues.