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]

The rest are fine but I have not yet had a chance to estimate colony strength.

I checked some today and they were a bit weaker than expected but all should be fine apart from one which had a drone laying queen. I squashed the drone laying queen and will requeen it tomorrow.

voytech, you are dicing with death not treating varroa. I rarely see a mite but sometimes when I treat I get a drop of hundreds.

[voytech104]

Hi guys,
It's been a while I visited this forum but I guess I need to start again!
I checked my three hives last sunday and all three alive and well I'm a tad surprised as it was quite late when nucs were purchased. Started feeding them weak syrup and intending to open them up and check strength - but need to wait for nicer weather. i have no idea how and when to treat against varroa as I did nothing last year... I cannot find a single mite though...


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[voytech104]

Ok, I'll rephrase can anybody tell me when and how to treat varroa this spring?
I don't want to kill them nor neglect them...


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[Jon]

Best bet is probably Apiguard gel, although if you have a really strong colony some would recommend the shook swarm.

the bbka site has a couple of threads on spring treatment of mites.