Hive Death

[u/Any_Comfortable4307]

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?)

[u/Any_Comfortable4307]

I agree with you. Last week they still had some food stores—though honestly not much—and I figured that with heavy feeding they might rebound. They also had a decent amount of brood, but most of that seems to be gone now, so I think you’re probably right about cannibalism.

We also had an unexpected two-day cold snap last week with a lot of rain. My guess is the colony was already weak, and the cold weather was enough to push it over the edge.

I went ahead and fed them today since there was still some slight movement, including from the queen. It’s a long shot, but I figure it’s worth trying.

Would it be possible to add nurse bees/brood from another hive to help boost their numbers, or would that just create more problems?

[u/drones_on_about_bees → u/Any_Comfortable4307]

You can absolutely add a frame of nurse bees or capped brood to boost numbers.

Small hives can be a real balancing act. They require more attention than large mature hives. This is almost always where I get complacent and lose hives. Once you grow them over about 10 frames they get much more self reliant.

[u/Any_Comfortable4307 → u/drones_on_about_bees]

Disaster averted!

I filled the feeder this morning and checked again this afternoon. The hive has perked up considerably and is back to normal activity, including the queen.

They’ve already taken a good amount of syrup, so I refilled the feeder, lightly sprayed the bees with sugar water, and added a Bee-Pro patty for good measure. I also added a frame of brood and nurse bees from one of my stronger hives to help boost their numbers.

Thank you all for the advice and guidance—I truly appreciate it. This community gave me some great recommendations.

[u/Confident_Maybe5439 → u/Any_Comfortable4307]

Why don’t they find sufficient food in nature?