We’ve had a fairly cold winter so, unlike most years, I have not been able to simply look outside and see if the bees are flying to know they are ok. I prepared the bees this fall by treating them with various things to make sure they were healthy, I made sure they had plenty of honey and pollen to eat through the winter and then I crossed my fingers.
- Still clustered, but dead
We recently had a warm day and I was able to check the 4 hives at my house. To my dismay, 2 were dead-outs. All of my hives at other locations are fine so I was surprised to find some at my house that were gone. We live atop a hill in Charleston, WV and we get serious wind. I have a windbreak around them but I considered that the extreme drafts might have gotten to them. That is the one characteristic that separates the hives at my house from the ones I have elsewhere. It has been said that one cannot freeze bees…if they stay dry and not too windy. If either problem exists, all bets are off so I figured I fell prey to the wind.
Heads down in the cells...telltale sign of starvation
I opened the hives and immediately knew that the wind was not to blame, but rather the cold…sort of. You see, my bees didn’t freeze, but rather starved to death. The cold makes bees cluster together. As it gets especially cold with no warm days interspersed, the bees cannot break their cluster. Without breaking cluster, they cannot move through the hive either. Since their honey stores are spread throughout the hive, they need to be able to move around periodically to eat.
Some honey nearby where they were clustered
Plenty of honey one more frame over...
So, I opened 2 hives and saw the tell-tale signs…bees still clustered together, many bees with their heads deep in honeycomb cells, and honey nearby, but not right where they died.
I hate for a colony to die, and when it is related to something I might have done wrong, it irritates me even more (fortunately, that doesn’t happen often anymore). But when it’s due to nature, I guess I feel a little bit of relief. It’s never fun, but it is a reality of beekeeping. So, I just hope for warmer days here and there so the bees can move to food and also for a quick Spring! Come on Spring!
Warren can also be found at My Home Among the Hills writing about the adventures of life in WV.
Not Dabbling In Normal 
I am so sad about the bees. =(
So sad! We just checked on ours yesterday and they were both buzzing away, which is a good sign. We’re crossing our fingers that they bother survive. We’ve had a lot of cold days without any warm ones so we’ve been wondering about the little ladies.
So sorry to hear about the ones you lost.
I’ve only recently found your blog; thanks so much for sharing your life with bees. I hope to acquire a hive for our homestead within the next few years, so I appreciate being able to read and learn from your experience.
Thanks again. 🙂
Sorry…I know how hard it is. I can’t wait for spring to try again with a new hive. Hope the rest of yours fair well throughout the rest of the winter. Kim
Great post. It really makes me wonder how folks keep bees at all up here [central Alberta] if they freeze to death.
I guess I am fortunate…I typically only lose a hive or two and that’s to be expected. I still have many more so I will make splits and be back up to proper numbers by May…but it is still frustrating. One thing that is sometimes a problem is when one has too many bees in a colony…they eat too much too fast. Of course, lots of bees is usually a good thing, but maybe not always.
Shayne – I can’t help but talk about bees…it’s a weird obsession I have I guess
Kevin – people way up North sometimes surround hives with straw as insulation or wrap hive boxes in black tarpaper to get some solar gain. There are all sorts of other ways to keep bees up North too…beekeepers like to tinker usually and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t
I found this post to be really sad–but in a good way. It’s hard to explain–I guess, living in a metropolitan area, it makes me happy to see that there are still people who do things like keep bees.
Thanks for the great info Warren. Bummer about the loss!