Frames of honey.
It was a weird bee season. By mid June the nuc I bought this year was almost dead. By July the new package was also on it's way out. At that point the 2 hives that over wintered were doing well, growing fast. Those 2 hives quickly filled a honey super each. In early August I put a second super on each hive, expecting them to fill those too.
I was a bad beekeeper... I didn't check on them for the next couple of months. I'd look over, see lots of bees buzzing around, but didn't do any inspections. Until yesterday... It's now early November, and we're having a warm streak, the PERFECT time to pull supers and get the bees ready for winter. The problem... almost NO BEES are left in the hives. There may be 200-300 bees between the 2 hives. There should be 20,000-30,000 bees there. There was plenty of honey in the hive bodies, but no larvae... no queen. These hives are functionally dead. I'll keep the honey in the hive bodies for next years bees. This will give them a better start for the year.
Frames of honey.
It was a weird bee season. By mid June the nuc I bought this year was almost dead. By July the new package was also on it's way out. At that point the 2 hives that over wintered were doing well, growing fast. Those 2 hives quickly filled a honey super each. In early August I put a second super on each hive, expecting them to fill those too.
I was a bad beekeeper... I didn't check on them for the next couple of months. I'd look over, see lots of bees buzzing around, but didn't do any inspections. Until yesterday... It's now early November, and we're having a warm streak, the PERFECT time to pull supers and get the bees ready for winter. The problem... almost NO BEES are left in the hives. There may be 200-300 bees between the 2 hives. There should be 20,000-30,000 bees there. There was plenty of honey in the hive bodies, but no larvae... no queen. These hives are functionally dead. I'll keep the honey in the hive bodies for next years bees. This will give them a better start for the year.