Disclaimer:

This blog explains how I keep bees. It works for me, it might not work for you. Use my methods at your own risk. Always wear protective clothing and use a smoker when working bees.

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Monday, April 27, 2015

Starving bees

I have had a couple reports of beekeepers finding all their bees fallen to the bottom board. What has happened is the sun has warmed one side of their hive and the bees have migrated over to the side that is warm. This pulls them off the feeder pail. They are fine for a day or so. But after that they run out of food that was stored in their stomachs. With the cold week and some cold mornings the bees start to starve because they can't reach the feeder pail because they are clustering off to the side of the hive. If you see your bees in this condition look at the clump of bees and see if they are moving at all, move the hive to a warm vehicle or garage. Lightly spray some sugar water on the clump. Move the clump a little with your hive tool and lightly spray the bees underneath. They may or may not come back. If they come back, watch where the cluster is and take out frames away from the cluster and slide the frames with the bees on them under the feeder pail. Put the other frames back in.
 Hindsight to this is, if a beekeeper started their package bees in a five frame nuc box the bees would always be on the feed and the bees would be alive today.