Here’s a new postmortem for all of you bee sleuths out there. Jim Metrailer from Alabama sent the following pictures and questions with the go-ahead to share them with you. The first colony On January 25th, a sunny day with temperatures in the mid-50s, Jim inspected his hives. His top-bar hive and one Langstroth showed […] Read more
Are you ready to determine what’s wrong with this colony? We’ll do this together, starting with a differential diagnosis. In case you’ve never watched medical dramas on television, I will explain. A differential diagnosis is a procedure that doctors use to help determine a disease or condition. It is used when the signs and symptoms […] Read more
When you find circles of honey bees head-down in cells, does that mean they starved? Were head-down bees licking the bottom of the cells to get every last morsel of honey? A reader raised these questions a few weeks ago. Since then, I’ve asked many established beekeepers for their thoughts and observations. To my surprise, […] Read more
Here’s another mystery for all you hive detectives. Mark, a soon-to-be beekeeper in northern California, purchased three beehives from an ex-keeper who decided to quit after his bees absconded. Mark performed a cursory inspection of the equipment before purchase, but after getting it home and examining more carefully, became concerned about the crud shown below. […] Read more
Here’s another chance to help a fellow beekeeper. Chris, a first-year beekeeper in Georgia, lost one of his two hives back in February. In order to figure out what went wrong, Chris did a detailed postmortem and recorded his notes for you to review. I already gave Chris several ideas of my own, but both of […] Read more
So many responses! And theories galore—everything from tracheal mites to alien abduction. I promised to give my own opinion on the cause of death, but please remember that there is a lot of experience reflected in the posted answers. My own opinion is just that, so you should not discount what others have to say. Several […] Read more
Here’s an exercise for all you hive detectives out there. Beekeeper Aaron Althouse from here in the Pacific Northwest recently lost one of his two hives. He performed a postmortem, took many photos, and wrote an analysis, all of which is posted below. Your task is to see if you agree with his conclusions or […] Read more