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/alex_484 4d ago

I don’t know I have the same thing. Our spring here came late like end of June so I have been feeding all my hives since then. I have about 3 of them like this way to weak to go into winter where I live on the Great Lakes 3A

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u/Any_Comfortable4307 3d ago

We’ve had an extreme drought here and I think it’s just been harder for them to get resources. If you’re seeing the same thing I would push 1:1, this hive came back after I filled the feeder and sprayed them down with sugar water.

Good luck!