We Found 3 colonies dead from cold!
 
On Thursday last week we went to a site in Muldersdrift, Johannesburg, South Africa! It was a routine visit this time of year with AUGUST being the month of preparation for the ALOES and making increases or splitting.

I was shocked to find that 3 of 8 colonies looked to have died from the cold. They weren't empty boxes with no brood or remnants of the colonies having absconded. All the bees where still inside the bee hives all forming a pyramid on top of each other in a corner. Probably trying to huddle together to create warmth.

This is the first time ever that I have lost bees over the winter due to freezing to death. Losses from absconding is part of the deal with bee farming. But not from freezing to death.

As it happens we took our FAMOUS Freezer Bags with us to feed the 8 colonies we expected to find at site. We inspected the 5 colonies left to find the second season colonies were fine and working quite well. The last season colonies look to have fallen prey to the very deeply cold spell Johannesburg experienced a couple of weeks back.

So, with 1 of last seasons colonies left we placed them in a full brood box by transferring the trap box frames over in the same order. We gave the transferred colony a bumper feeding of sugar water in freezer bags to ensure the weaker colony would benefit from easy access to food! 

Another fairly new colony received 2 bags with each of the other 2nd season colonies getting 1 bag each. Be careful not to over feed your colonies. They will get dysentry and die if you feed them for too long.            

There are a number of concerns regarding this discovery of dead bees in one of our apiaries. As it is the first time ever to see this it be prudent to ensure that if you haven't already fed your bees that you do so.

If bees have enough winter food stores of honey they can eat it to increase their metabolism and therefore generate heat to control their immediate climate.

This is one of the reasons we have never seen this phenomenon before in any of our apiaries. We have never had to shelter our bees using insulation as they would normally be able to provide their own climate control.

For some reason, it appears the site, which is fairly new, must suffer from more extreme cold when it is cold and perhaps has much less winter forage than other sites we operate. 

Therefore, these 1 year old colonies had not yet built up enough winter stores to handle the extremely cold spell in July.

Feeding bees can be used to manipulate a number of reactions by bees.

1) To compensate for lack of food at certan times of year

2) To encourage speedy growth in a new colony

3) To help the colony kick start laying of eggs and increase their size

4) When planning to split colonies it should be part of your preparation

5) To promote colony numbers in anticipation of a nectar flow                        

Easy Buzzing bee course End July