Winter Losses 2011/2012

[Neils]

Possibly still a bit early, but as there are a few posts here and there mentioning it I thought I'd kick a thread off.

For those that remember last year when I tried to put a broader picture together from discussions across all the main UK beekeeping forums I'm not intending to do that again this year. It was useful and broadly matched up with the BBKA's winter loss survey,but it was a lot of work and the nature of Forums means that I think it'll be hard to get a truly accurate picture, very few people are going to go on a public forum and announce they lost all their bees I suspect.

After last year where technically all three of my colonies made it through winter, but only one subsequently built up enough to actually do anything I'm not reading too much into the signs of life in all my colonies right now. (3x 14x12 hives and 2 Nucs).

One of the main colonies is very light on stores at the moment, but was a small colony combined with another small nuc to try and give them a chance to make it through winter.

For those who have unfortunately lost colonies this winter, do you have any insight as to what might have caused it?

[Trog]

According to OH who checked the candy on each hive and removed a few mouseguards while I was away doing SBA stuff, no losses chez Trog so far. Two nucs wintered side by side in a Twinstock seem stronger than another wintered in a full size b/b with dummy boards and lots of polystyrene but only the first spring inspection will reveal all!

[fatshark]

One mini-nuc lost to suspected Nosema.
One hive lost to starvation and/or stupidity (the bees, not mine). Swarm caught in June, looked fine but never built up much and refused to take down much in the way of stores. Cosseted them in a poly hive, with fondant present all the time, but still looked like they starved - I say their stupidity because they had every opportunity to take fondant. Interestingly, grafted from the same queen late in the year and both nucs and mini-nucs from her are still going very well. Nice dark well behaved bees, but will have to watch how they do this Spring.
Here in the Midlands it's been much milder than last year, with bees still flying on Christmas day. Both colonies that succumbed appear to have done so in the early Feb cold snap.

[Gscot]

Started with 2 colonies last year which produced a good batch of honey.Made up a split in Aug. which build up to about 9 frames going into winter.Treated them all with O.A. in Dec.After treating I noticed hundreds of dead bees outside 1 of the hives the following day the hive was dead.It was the first time I used O.A..I done every thing by the book.Plenty of bees and stores in hive

[Jon]

If your bees have nosema Oxalic acid kills them off apparently, but they would have died anyway from the nosema.

Mine are all still alive bar a single frame of bees with a queen which I was generously calling a nuc back in December.
The rest are fine but I have not yet had a chance to estimate colony strength.
15 colonies, 3 nucs and 4 apideas.

[drumgerry]

Went into winter with 7 colonies and all alive as of last week in the mild weather. All have plenty of bees and stores and were given an Apistan treatment in September followed by an oxalic trickle on 23rd December. It's been an exceptional winter here in Speyside with very little snow on the ground and temperatures only as low as -8C - but not for a sustained period of time.

Not counting my chickens quite yet as I've obviously not had a proper look at them.

[Jon]

This is looking like a good year for winter survival.
Local beekeepers I have spoken to have reported next to no losses.
Figures I have heard so far from various friends and acquaintances are:

13/15, 14/14, 8/8, 2/2, 3/3, 6/6

Only a couple lost out of about 50 but noone has had a chance to look inside yet.
It is supposed to be 14c on Saturday so that might give an opportunity for a quick check.

There is just one beekeeper I have heard of with heavy losses, in a neighbouring BKA, and he used some home made concoction for treating varroa. When will they learn?

[drumgerry]

Similar story from someone I spoke to. They were perplexed as to why all 4 of their colonies had died. I asked did you treat for Varroa? Answer - no.

I wonder if some new beekeepers particularly search around the web and discover the organic/top bar hive crowd where non-treatment seems to be the norm. Their attitude that you need to let "weak" colonies die off and breed from the survivors seems a terrible over-simplification of the multi-faceted relationship between the honeybee and the varroa mite. A good example I saw mentioned on the Irish list was that the colony which shows most resistance to Varroa might succumb to Nosema or isolation starvation and you'll never have the chance to use the genetics of that colony because you didn't give it the help it needed. It's akin to letting a prize tup (or in my case alpaca stud male) succumb through lack of a worming drench.

[Jon]

I think that is my post on the Irish list you are quoting from!!!
But yes, I worm my dog and treat for fleas rather than sitting back waiting for her to develop resistance to ecto and endoparasites. She would not thank me for the laissez faire attitude.
The non treatment folk are generally quite naive but the guy I mentioned above is in his 70s and has been keeping bees a long time. He has taken bad advice from a local 'guru' who cant keep his bees alive either. last year his losses were 12/12. I can't understand how the gurus who have catastrophic losses every year manage to keep the acolytes happy.

[drumgerry]

Ah well Jon - you're posts are as interesting and instructional there as they are here.

Beekeeping does seem to suffer rather a lot from individuals with messianic (sp?) tendencies I've found! Self appointed gurus with too many opinions and not enough to back them up. It does make me sad though when I hear of the old-timers taking losses through lack of up to date knowledge. Varroa is merciless though as I'm sure we all know