[Wes Kootenay]

I'm Alan from the Slocan Valley, which is in the West Kootenays (like my user name )
Joined because I obviously suck as a beekeeper. My one hive has not made it through winter. I need to find out if it was weather related, a condensation issue, a mistake I made or something I neglected to do.
I'll post details later.
Cheers!

 

[roadkillbobb]

welcome aboard..did you have dead bees in the hive or was it empty?..

 

[Wes Kootenay]

Thank you.
Dead throughout the hive. I'll post the full story soon.
The dead bees look like they were healthy. Checked on them through winter, they seemed fine, lots of bee poo on the snow, then everything went sideways.

 

[roadkillbobb]

I have sent dead bees to the USDA for testing, does canada have any government agency to test sead bees to tell you why they died?..I wonder if you can send them to the USDA for testing? I dont know if you can send something like that over the border without permission..
heres the link, maybe you can ask them..

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjTpMm5y-X9AhUxlokEHUG_AsYQFnoECAoQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ars.usda.gov%2Fnortheast-area%2Fbeltsville-md-barc%2Fbeltsville-agricultural-research-center%2F&usg=AOvVaw3PPWClXSd4L0WLMUocCk7e

 

[Gypsi]

were they clustered with their heads in comb? Might have starved, it does happen, I've lost a hive to starvation before. They stayed in the bottom box covering brood and had a full box of honey above them. It hurt. It was my best hive that year

 

[Wes Kootenay]

were they clustered with their heads in comb? Might have starved, it does happen, I've lost a hive to starvation before. They stayed in the bottom box covering brood and had a full box of honey above them. It hurt. It was my best hive that year

I haven't taken the hive apart yet, still 2ft of snow around it. When I did the Varroa treatment in the Fall they had two boxes of honey, plus a couple of flow-frames we hadn't got around to draining, to take them through winter. Late Fall, we had a storm that blew the roof off, rain may have got into the hive? I'll post my story with pics soon.
Thanks for the response.
EDIT: I said, in an earlier reply, that there are dead bees throughout the hive. To clarify, there were lots on the bottom board and clustered above the flow frames at the top.

 

[Gypsi]

is this a flow hive? I've not seen the inside of one so I am not sure why they clustered there. The lid blowing off may have killed many with cold and reduced cluster size to where they simply could not stay warm. The cluster warms itself by rotating the outer bees to the inside and feeding while inside, as I understand it. We combine hives in winter to produce larger clusters because small clusters just get too cold