Any casualties yet?

[prakel]

Any other year I might have blamed the quality of the queens or nosema, but I've never seen a year where the queens stopped laying so early and restarted so late. I think the thymol treatment late on might be a factor

Interesting thought.

--------------------------

I notice that poly hive's blog off May 9th reported

I heard last night that there are massive losses amongst the commercial bee men in Scotland.

Colonies are still dying off from the winter weather and losses of over 90% were quoted.

Poor matings are blamed

It is the colonies which were headed by the queens mated or rather not properly mated in 2012 that are failing.

which suggests that at least 90% of all colonies on at least one bee farm experienced queen replacement with inefficiently mated queens.

Incredible figures.

[nemphlar]

The hives I looked at tonight have large consistent frames of brood, late but no drone layers and at this moment appear to be making up for lost time to the max the bees can cover. So the Queens now seem to be doing ok and poor mating last year can't be blamed for poor winter breeding in my case

[gavin]

Incredible figures.

Yes, aren't they! I'm keeping a paternal eye on a beginner in the same area - two colonies into winter, two semi-decent colonies coming out of it.

How can someone making his living from bees do so much worse than that? And why would he be replacing almost all of his queens?

[Jon]

I heard a report of a guy (in Scotland) who has 20 left out of 2000.

It has been a once in a lifetime bad winter.
I have lost far more than usual and many people I know have lost all their colonies.

Funny thing is it is patchy. There are people who have lost 12/12 and others maybe 1/12.
We do not have any commercial beekeepers here in NI. Someone with 20 colonies is a major player!

[prakel]

I heard a report of a guy (in Scotland) who has 20 left out of 2000.

If that's right (not questioning you Jon, but rather the source; there are a lot of old wives and gossips in the bee game) then that's just incredible. That could be a quarter of the infamous 200 000K spoken for by one firm -if they're able to match it of course.

[fatshark]

Thought I'd had the last of my winter casualties on Saturday when I fumbled and dropped a triple-decker overwintered mini-nuc. Pandemonium. All 15 frames scattered about. Oops. However, checking today found (and marked) the queen and transferred the lot into a 'proper' nuc. Good job

[Bridget]

So 10 days after first inspection one colony has increased 1/3rd and the other decreased 1/3rd. The decreased is down to 2 seams and v little stores, pollen, brood. I'm feeding 1/1 syrup but they are not taking much. Should I go back to fondant and pollen patties to help build them up. The queen is still young, last year and laid well then. They were a strong colony going into winter and pretty good all through the winter. Any ideas? I'm still a beginner so any thoughts welcome. It may be that there has been a slow build up of new brood and big loss of old bees.

[fatshark]

If there's lots of space in the hive/nuc then fill it up with insulation, plus a big block under the roof. I think the rate limiting step now is keeping the developing brood nest warm. If there are too few bees they'll never keep the new brood warm. If necessary pack out the space behind a dummy board with bubble wrap.

[nemphlar]

My experience this year has been that a blink of sun and some pollen even the very small survivors started laying. It's very difficult to properly insulate a standard hive down to 4 frames and I've moved them to 4 frame Poly nucs which I'm convinced assists the small ones

[Bridget]

Many thanks FS and Nemplar. I didn't realise that brood needed a warm temperature to develop but I suppose its just like nesting birds eggs etc. To cold here today to open them and pi🎉🎉ing with rain but I will try to close them down a bit tomorrow. I've no 4 frame nucs but have spare dummy boards and insulation and forecast is 21 degrees here tomorrow (Up from 9 today?) so will give it a try and perhaps head up to Highland Bees on Monday and get a small poly nuc from them.
You know when you get instructions for a new computer there is a troubleshooting section - well all my bee books tell you masses about "how to..." but no sections on "what ifs" - thank goodness for this forum.