A Bee Colony Starves

On a warm mid-winter day, a beekeeper observes numerous dead bees on the ground outside one of his hives. Inside the hive, he finds a small cluster of dead bees with many of the dead facing head-first into empty cells. A dead queen bee is located in the center of the cluster of bees. There is an empty supersedure queen cell adjacent to the cluster of bees with a trap door still attached, a tell-tale indication that a virgin queen has recently emerged. A queen that emerges in the winter is of no use to the colony because she will not be able to successfully mate with drones. There is no honey in the vicinity of the cluster of dead bees. A few capped cells indicate that the bees had been attending brood before the bees died. It appears that the bees died of starvation. With a relatively mild winter, the bees had been able to fly from their hive on a number of days; however, on their foraging flights, the bees hadn’t brought in enough food to meet the needs of their expanding colony.

Starvation is the greatest killer of honey bee colonies. They die because they don’t have food available to the cluster of bees. This often occurs even when there are ample stores of honey in the hive, but it is beyond the reach of the winter cluster. The cluster remains on the combs containing brood to feed and protect the fragile, developing bees. They eat the food nearby, as they did in today’s photo by George Bujarski. On prolonged periods of cold, the bees will not move throughout the hive to gather stored honey. Because honey bees share their food, they starve together. Since this colony exhibited no signs of disease, like American foulbrood, it will be safe for the beekeeper to reuse the hive and frames of drawn combs. He will protect the combs from hive scavengers till replacement bee colonies are available in the spring.

--Richard

The January Thaw

In the middle of the winter we often experience a short period of warm weather, a “January thaw.” During such a warm spell, bees will break out of their winter cluster to move about the hive and collect stored honey. If outside temperatures are above 50 degrees Fahrenheit, bees will be seen flying from the hive. Some are gathering nectar from skunk cabbage and dandelions; some are collecting water to liquify stored honey; and some are making cleansing flights to eliminate stored body waste. The January thaw is a good time for the beekeeper to make his or her first quick check of the bee hives. Since there is likely to be brood in the hives, they cannot be opened for a thorough inspection. We don’t want to break apart the brood nest or leave the hive open except for a very short time else risk chilling and killing the brood. However, we can determine whether a particular hive is running out of stored food by gently lifting the back of the hive and comparing its weight to other hives. Any light-weight hives likely need some emergency feeding to carry the bees through the winter. Also, any hives that show large numbers of bees located in the upper-most portion of the hive likely need emergency feeding. The bees in these hives have likely consumed the stored honey above their brood nest, or their stored honey is located in a portion of the hive that the bees will not access. In either case, the colonies risk starvation, the greatest killer of honey bees.

Mid-winter feeding of bees is emergency feeding. It can be accomplished by feeding full frames of honey taken from other hives or from the beekeeper’s storage. Gently scratch the capping to expose the honey, and place the frames directly above the brood nest. Dry sugar can be fed above the hive’s inner cover as in today’s photo. A wooden shim lifts the outer cover to accommodate extra sugar.

--Richard

Harsh March

A Minnesota beekeeper checks his hive and finds plenty of bees and ample stored honey. Shortly afterward, cold weather set in for several days. Two weeks later, he finds the bees in the hive are dead even though the hive still holds plenty of honey. March is often the harshest month for honey bees. Bee populations are growing; the increasing population of bees requires a lot of food; the hive's food stores are rapidly diminishing; and there are not many flowers blooming for bees to forage. On warm days, worker bees may expend more energy searching for food than they would consume if they remained in the hive. Also, when there is brood in the hive, the bees must warm the brood nest to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, requiring the consumption of honey to generate heat. The most likely cause of the death of the Minnesota bees is starvation. Starvation is easy to identify; the beekeeper finds the dead bees clustered with dead bees head-first inside empty cells as in today’s photo. Often, ample stores of honey surround the dead, starved bees.

In starvation, here's what typically happens: The bees expand their winter cluster on warm days and contract the cluster on cold nights. On warm days the bees eat the stored honey surrounding the cluster. Then, when outside temperatures fall, the cluster contracts leaving a ring of emptied cells surrounding the bees. If the winter colony has no brood, the cluster may move about the hive. However, if there is brood present, the clustered bees will not move away from the brood. During a prolonged period of cold weather the bees remain tightly clustered, and they can't move the few inches to the stored honey. Because the colony shares food, all of the bees die when the colony runs out of food that they can access. If beekeepers detect a hive is short of food stores in late winter, they can provide emergency feeding of dry sugar or fondant candy.

--Richard