Minding Our Bees and Qs
A.V. Walters
Ah, The Sweet Smell of… Failure?! How can that bee?
We’ve just spent the better part of the weekend processing honey. The house smells sweet and clean from honey and beeswax. Unexpectedly, we have a lot of honey. This is honey that was left in the hives so the bees would have something to eat over the winter. The problem is that the bees didn’t make it. We checked the hives a couple of weeks ago and confirmed our worst suspicions; all the hives were dead.
They must have died pretty early in the winter, because they left ample stores of honey. At least they didn’t starve. There’s nothing wrong with the honey, so, once we’d cleaned up the hives, and done our limited forensics, we collected up the laden frames for processing. We had very productive bees. Our mild winter appears to be melting into an early spring, and we wanted the hives empty before we have a bunch of grumpy, hungry bears roaming around.
The late season honey is very different from our first harvest. The honey from early in the season is light, with a floral aroma. The late season honey is thick and more strongly flavored—made with the robust pollen of Black-eyed Susans and Goldenrod. I can’t decide which I like better.
We’re not quite finished processing, but it looks like we’ll end up with just shy of seventy pounds of honey. Add that to the thirty-five pounds we harvested last fall, fifteen pounds from the Pinta hive, and… well, it’s a lot of honey. Today we had to run out to buy another dozen quart canning jars. (Folks at the local grocery wonder out loud what you’re canning in March. It’s early, even for maple syrup.) The new quart jars, along with every jar and container in the house brings this batch to about 27 quarts. It makes for a bittersweet failure. We’d rather have the bees.
We’ve checked with the experts and the most likely explanation is that our bees succumbed to varoa mites (or to the viruses that the mites carry.) There was some evidence of mite activity in the two smaller hives. Our aggressive hive, Santa Maria, was not so clear a case. It could have been the weather. This winter’s warm/cold oscillations were very hard on local bees. We’re not the only ones who have had losses. Even experienced beekeepers are cursing this winter. It seemed mild, except (quite abruptly) when it wasn’t.
We have cleaned up the hive boxes, and set them ready for spring–we have new bees on order. I’ve also ordered a well-recommended book on natural beekeeping–and I attended a day-long class on advanced beekeeping techniques. I feel almost ready to try again. We’ll monitor mite levels closely. We’ll do mid-season splits (dividing colonies in half, and “forcing” new queens.) Splitting not only increases the number of hives, it also interrupts the varoa breeding cycles. And, we’ll investigate and experiment with natural methods of hive treatment.
Bees’ combs are amazing structures.
Overall, we can’t complain. The retail value of the honey we harvested has covered our initial investments in bees and equipment. It makes good sense to try again. We plan to start with three hives, and split to six, mid-summer. At the end of the season we can assess the hives’ strengths, and either go into the winter with six, or recombine some for larger, stronger hives for next winter. Unfortunately, the new normal in beekeeping is to expect thirty percent losses–and that’s when you do everything right.
We’ll have to be a lot better about minding our bees.
tworockchronicles 
So sorry to hear that the bees didn’t make it.:-(
I’m glad that people are beekeeping though, since we need bees so much!
I didn’t get this part: “This is honey that was left in the hives so the bees would have something to eat over the winter. The problem is that the bees didn’t make it.”
If the bees didn’t make the honey how did it get there?
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I meant that the bees didn’t make it through the winter–so what would have been there winter stores is left behind.
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How interesting–and sad. That’s amazing every bee in every hive died. And the difference in the honey–very cool.
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Wow, sorry about the bees. What’s happening to bee populations is scary. Glad you saved the honey, though. –Curt
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We won’t give up, but we will do better by the bees.
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Good luck!
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Uggh. I’m pleased you have the honey but terribly sorry to hear about your bees. The same thing happened to us last year. In February the bees were healthy and active, but by March they were all dead, even though they had plenty to eat.
When we first started beekeeping it was the easiest thing we did on the farm. All we had to do was collect the honey periodically. They took care of themselves.
Now it’s very difficult to keep them alive. We have one hive left and if it dies I’ve already decided we’re done beekeeping. I’ve sunk too much time and money into it over the last few years.
I have two friends who are doing it successfully, with a dozen or more hives. One carefully monitors and medicates her bees. The other never intervenes at all. Go figure.
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I have purchased a book, Conrad’s “Natural Beekeeping.” I just cannot do the poison thing. But I think if I practice active management (monitoring, mid-season splits and maybe essential oils) I can do what’s necessary to keep them alive. Because we are pretty remote, I naively believed that a hands-off approach would be enough. Apparently not. Since my initial motivation was to help the bees, I cannot quit after one failure. Clearly, given the honey production, we’re well located for bees for food and resources; it’s a question of diligence. Besides, I have this investment in hives, in tools and in fashionable attire.
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So sorry about the bees. We read that the most important thing was that the bees needed enough honey to see them through winter but that was not the problem here. Over here we have heard of big losses again this year from people in our bee association. The tendency is to blame pesticides but I feel where big losses are seen there should be some analysis of the bees made. Amelia
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We know that two of the three hives likely succumbed to varoa mites. The third is a mystery. No evidence of mite activity, and tons of honey. The winter’s warm/cold fluctuations were tough on the bees–many of my beekeeping friends are also suffering heavy losses. I just wish I was more experienced–to put this in perspective. Obviously I have much to learn.
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