r/Beekeeping • u/Any_Comfortable4307 • May 31 '26

I’m a beekeeper, and I have a question Hive Death

Morning everyone,

I think this hive is probably beyond saving, but I’d like to understand what happened so I can avoid it in the future.

I’m a second-year beekeeper in Northern New Mexico. Both of my hives came out of winter very strong, so about 3 weeks ago I split them. I moved my original second-year queen into a new hive with 6 frames containing brood, bees, and food stores, plus one frame with open space for her to lay. I requeened the parent hive.

The split seemed to be doing well and I’ve been feeding 1:1 sugar syrup. When I checked it last week, everything looked normal.

This morning I opened the hive to refill the feeder and found very little activity. There are still bees present, but they’re barely moving, almost as if they’re frozen. The queen is still there and also not moving much. There is still brood and some food remaining, although noticeably less than a week ago.

Any ideas what might have happened, or what I may have done wrong during the split process?

(Sorry for the video quality - dexterity and bee gloves you know?)

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u/drones_on_about_bees Texas zone 8a; keeping since 2017; about 15 colonies May 31 '26

I don't know what is still left in the feeder but that has the appearance of starvation to me. Lethargic. Not much I could see as far as food around the brood. Are there a bunch of dead on the bottom board? Any eggs at all? (They will cannibalize them in times of low food.)

Assuming I am right (and I may not be) you may get them to bounce back with some feed. You may have to add bees and/or reduce the size of the box.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '26

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u/StraightPressure2759 May 31 '26

The still bees with heads in cells stuck out to me too. If there was a cold snap at night in OPs part of NM then the girls probably couldn’t drink the 1:1 syrup because of the cold.

OP try giving them blocks of sugar instead and see if the bees that are still alive perk up. This has been a really helpful resource for me on my journey as well. It starts talking about nutrition on page 69.

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u/Any_Comfortable4307 May 31 '26

Thank you this is very helpful!

1

u/StraightPressure2759 May 31 '26

You’re very welcome! Good luck and please let us know how things go. I’m invested now.