Table of contents
Did mites kill your bees? In spite of having gallons of honey and multiple frames of pollen stored in your hive, your bees died anyway. What happened?
In fall, you had a large population and lots of honey
You went into autumn with an exuberant and populous hive. You weren’t worried about them because they had a first-year queen and loads of honey and pollen. You counted your mite drop and it seemed okay—you saw a few mites but not many—so you dusted the bees with powdered sugar just to be on the safe side.
Somewhere toward early spring, you decided to check the colony’s food supply, just in case. You even prepared some candy boards as an insurance policy. So on the first warmish day when you thought it was safe to open the hive, you did. But to your amazement, no one was home.
In spring, the colony is gone but the honey remains
What you found was an empty hive with very few dead bees and frame after frame of untouched honey. Or maybe you found no bees and no honey either. Instead, all of the frames that had been full were now empty with ragged and torn edges. What went wrong?
Signs of varroa infestation
The very first thing I would suspect in a situation like this is varroa mites. Mites can take down a colony quickly, and the mites that you count on a sticky board are just the tip of the iceberg. But to be sure—or at least more sure—here is a list for your post-mortem:
- If there are very few dead bees in your hive, it may mean the colony worked hard at removing them until the last minute. Try to find some dead ones on the bottom board, alighting board, or even on the ground nearby. Sift through them and look for bees with deformed wings. The presence of many deformed wings is a good indicator of varroa.
- If you have a bottom board or varroa tray in place, look for mites. If the colony died from mites, you will find mites in the debris.
- Look for frames of honey. A hive with plenty of honey and no bees can be a sign of varroa. A hive with no bees and honeycombs with jagged edges indicates a weak or dead hive that was invaded by robbers, which can also be a sign of varroa.
- Examine the brood frames. Adult bees that died while they were emerging, or just before, may have been weakened by varroa. These bees will have their heads facing up.
- Hold up the empty brood frames with the sun at your back so you can see inside the cells. If you find bright white deposits adhering to the inside of brood cells, you can be sure of a varroa infestation. These white spots are patches of mite excrement that contain about 95% pure guanine, an amino acid.
Review your management strategy
If you conclude your bees died of a varroa infestation, review your management strategy and try something different next year. Mites can be handled in many different ways, but you must be diligent. If you do nothing—or next to nothing—the mites you reared will soon spread to other colonies, both feral and managed.
When colonies collapse leaving lots of honey behind, there’s a good chance that varroa mites are the problem.
Rusty
Honey Bee Suite
I suspect you diagnosed what happened in my hive. I’ll have to look for some of the signs you describe. If it was varroa is there any problem with giving the frames of honey to the new packages of bees I’m getting in a few weeks?
Andy,
No, no problem. Once the bees die the mites can’t survive either, so the equipment is clean.
This is exactly what happened to me. My question was exactly what Andy asked. Looking forward to trying this again starting on 13 April. Thanks again, Rusty.
~Rich
Life was complicated this past year. I was distracted in the spring and fed my weak and new colonies not enough. Another year of near-drought brought them thru late JUN and early JUL pretty light on nectar collections. My major failure, though, was mite treatment a bit too late in the year. My old guideline used to be harvest by State Fair time (Labor Day). Now I’m moving that up and beginning late season mite treatment a bit earlier. I’m also working on some new sticky board devices that I can place higher in the hive and not just at the bottom. Mites falling off bees in the third brood chamber aren’t like to fall all the way to the bottom.
John,
Interesting idea; I would never have thought of sampling higher up. I too keep treating earlier. Now I like to have it done by the end of August.
I lost two hives this winter, one a swarm that probably crashed from varroa.
Is there a page on your site where you map out your varroa treatment process for the year?
And what is your opinion about Hop Guard after your ups and downs with it?
thx, eric.
Hi Eric! Haven’t heard from you in a while.
Your question about HopGuard is timely. I’ve been sitting on a post, more or less waiting to see how my bees came through the winter. As of now it seems like everyone made it. It turns out that HopGuard saved the day for me, something I will explain in my post. I’ll try to get it up this weekend and, at your suggestion, I’ll also try to outline my mite philosophy and regimen. It’s not very complicated, really.
Thanks for these ideas.
I’m all about simple, so look forward to your plan.
Here’s video I did on my winter inspection with the two dead hives and my insulated inner cover – sugarcake method.
http://www.gardenfork.tv/feeding-bees-in-winter-beginning-beekeeping
Rusty, I went into my hive and found the remains of the cluster — a few dozen dead bees around the body of the queen. Here’s a picture and description: http://anubisbard.blogspot.com/2013/03/its-been-tough-year-for-bees.html
Andy,
Interesting photos. The queen made it until the end but there weren’t enough bees to keep themselves warm. Why? It’s possible the queen was failing and not laying properly, but that wouldn’t be my first guess. I will stick with mites (and the resultant viruses) as my first guess. The combination probably depleted the population until it wasn’t large enough to keep itself warm. Very sad. It looks like some spotty brood in the background. They were trying until the last.
Thanks for having a look. I ended up with frames of honey from three different hives, so I guess I’ll have to read up on how to make use of that with the new bees.
I had good results in mite control by selecting “mite resistant” breed of bees, namely Buckfast. I get the queens from R-weaver apiaries. In several years I never had to treat them for mites and never lost a colony to mites. It doesn’t completely eliminate mite problem, but bees seem to keep it in check themselves. I don’t know if the fact that I live in Florida and bees fly here pretty much every day of the year has anything to do with that but I think it is worth trying.
Art,
I’ve never seen any indication that Buckfast bees are at all resistant to varroa mites. Buckfast bees were bred specifically to resist tracheal mites. In recent years, however, tracheal mites do not seem to be as much of a problem as they used to be. In fact, some labs don’t even do tracheal mite testing any more. While Buckfast are excellent bees—and I’ve used them myself—varroa mite monitoring must be continued.
Greetings Rusty, again thank you for this blog. I had wrote to you before regarding being given a hive. Update this swarm was caught 2 months before given to me. During that 2 months they were not checked on. So anyway, we ordered mated queens. Installed them last Thursday. Yesterday Monday we checked both hives the one that swarm left, they had released the queen. Now we get to my Bee Happy bee hive and the queen is still in her cage???? Now doing some looking thinking maybe a worker is laying?
Our thoughts is to check again this Wednesday the 23rd and if the queen has not been released, we will smoke the hive good and we shall release her ourselves into the hive. I am hoping they do not kill her and she can began laying. We had read somewhere that in the case I just shared that we should just release these bees from this hive. What are you thoughts? Also quite a few of the bees from my hive, have white spots on the abdomen and some on the head. However, I did not see any workers coming into the hive with pollen…thank you for your time and experience. Crow.
Crow,
If a queen is not released within 4 or 5 days, I just release them by hand. I wouldn’t worry about the white spots. It may be pollen which rubbed onto them while they were collecting nectar, even though they weren’t collecting pollen in their baskets. I see lots of white pollen in the fall.
Hi Rusty,
So after checking for every possible sign (because of course first thought is always varroa, then nosema, then trailing off down the list) I went back to check for the white spots in the cells (kept the frames in a plastic bin) don’t see what I would call a fair amount of anything white in the brood cells, but in fairness could have become dislodged with the moving around. I was not exactly gentle.
So there was not a lot of dead bees anywhere – none on the ground and literally 6 or 8 in the hive. That’s it. A queen and the rest looked to be young.
I checked on that hive about two weeks earlier – it was boomin, shockingly so. Because it was so strong I was going to place it on a organic farm to help the orchards there.
So you can imagine my absolute horror to come back in just over two weeks and am totally confused as to where all my beez where. (I even had a stern talk with my uncle for spraying the peach trees without talking to me first 🙁 I was in the wrong on that one.)
So I need a direction to look – and at the moment it’s in the direction of CCD. But how is a person supposed to be sure?
The only thing that stood out to me was a kind of angry bee smell but something more to it. But then again I can smell things abit more intensely than others due to my nerve condition – I don’t know.
What am I just not seeing (besides bees)? I have got to be overlooking something.
Thanks.
Monica,
Did you read this post: Did they abscond or die from Varroa? I still think it sounds like mites.
Rusty can you tell me when and with what you treat your bees for Varroa mites. What is your regimen? Thanks Linda
Linda,
It changes, but for the last few years I used HopGuard or Apilife Var in mid-August and an oxalic acid drip after the winter solstice (year end). I use a sugar roll test and only treat those colonies that need it. I usually do another mite count in spring (May) but if I can get away without treating then, I wait until honey supers come off.
So when after the winter solstice do you treat? I’m sure there is a very simple answer for this and I am just not getting it. But I am interested in knowing because I may want to do the same thing and I don’t want to mess it up. Since oxalic acid drip is wet, how do you treat after winter solstice when it’s still cold outside?
Also if you don’t need to treat in May then would you wait until August or treat right after the supers are off then again in August?
One more question on a different subject. My hive that died had honey left in the brood boxes. Can I feed that to my new bees since we are pretty sure they died from Varroa and not from anything else. The only things I have used on the hives is oxalic acid vaporizer and Terramycin. Thanks I appreciate your help.
Linda,
1. How soon after the winter solstice? As soon as possible. I look for a day in the 40s or above, preferably not raining or windy. A slight drizzle is fine.
2. How do you treat when it’s cold? As quickly as possible. See the video here: Oxalic acid trickling. This video was done on a 42-degree day.
3. If you don’t need to treat in May, check again in late June. If I end up treating in late June, I will still treat in August. August is the key month.
4. The honey remaining is absolutely fine to feed your new bees.
I thought I was doing well with my hives and glad they made it through the winter. But they didn’t. One died in spring and the other is struggling along. Lost my queen and have put a queen cell in. Hoping for the best. I want you to know that I appreciate your website and that you take time to help people like me. I have to admit that after losing my hive and my other one struggling I am not feeling very confident right now. I always take any kind of loss personally. I feel like I have failed. It helps me to be able to get the answers I need from you. I belong to a bee club but people have their own lives and are not always willing or available when you need them. Thanks again Rusty. Have a great weekend.
Above article fits my situation to a T, I would like to restart my hive, by attracting the many foraging honey bees on my property, a commercial operation just placed many hives up the road from me, I’m guessing that’s why I have so many bees on my place now. I have no what to do how to remove the reasonable amount honey &dead bees in cells.
Advise please…newbe
Jen,
You don’t have to remove the dead bees and honey. Your new bees will remove the dead and they will use the honey to build up their populations. However, you won’t be able to build a new colony by attracting foraging bees because you will have no queen, and the foragers are already loyal elsewhere.
It’s January in the Midwest and my bees are gone. I have 6 hives and I suspect varroa mites . Can the honey that’s left be safely harvested? There is still lots of honey so I know they didn’t starve to death.
Thanks for your time.
Mike
Did you find an answer to this?