Saving a feral bee hive that is failing. скачать в хорошем качестве

Saving a feral bee hive that is failing.

www.studiobeeproductions.comAs a bee keeper, one of the saddest events I can witness is the demise of a colony. Sure, bees and colonies die all the time, and there isn't a bee keeper out there that hasn't experienced it for themselves. And, if they haven't experienced it, they will one day.This video is example of an attempt to rescue a colony that is in it's last days. At it's prime, this colony was massive. The comb was over 9 foot long and 16 inches wide. So what could have happened for such a strong colony to wither away to just a handful of bees? My guess, either mites and / or a stumbling queen. As there was hardly any brood in the hive, and absolutely zero uncapped brood, there was a queen issue. I did find 3 opened queen cells on the comb, so the queen may have been superseded, and the queen that was captured may have been the surviving queen, she may just not have started laying yet. In any case, because the colony had shrunk to such a degree, the bees were not able to protect the entire area and the beetles and wax moths had started to move in. The honey comb at the very top of the hive had wax moth in it, and the comb had already started to slim out due to the beetles. This hive was just days away from absconding. Because I was fearful of the condition of the comb, I did not want to give any of it back to these bees. So, when I installed the bees into a nuc, I gave them 2 frames of drawn out honey comb and 2 frames of initially drawn out comb. All the old comb was given to the abbey bees to rob out, after which, I melted it down. The transfer went very well, and all the surviving bees took to the nuc with their queen still in the cage. I released the queen 2 days later, and things looked really good. The bees were working the frames, and there were bees flying in and out. I actually felt confident that the bees were going to pull through their ordeal. Two days later I went and checked on them and I did not see any activity around the box. When I opened the box, I found all the bees dead at the bottom of the nuc. Initially, I thought it may have been a pesticide kill, but after looking more closely and checking the other hives next to it, I concluded they had been killed by robber bees. The queen was in the mix of dead bees, and there were dead bee bodies underneath and on top of chewed out wax cappings. To me, this conclusion makes the most sense because there were very few field bees in the box. The majority of bees were still nurse bees, and these were just not strong enough to defend their hive for an overpowering attack of bees. As I stated in the beginning, as a bee keeper, one of the saddest events I can witness is the demise of a colony. I get so much joy from seeing a hive that is strong and thriving, and on the other side of the coin, I have so much sadness at the loss of a hive, small or large. Regardless of the years I have been keeping bees or the number of hives that are in the yards, neither of these emotions have diminished in intensity when it comes to the particular situation. But through it all, I love being a bee keeper. God's peace to all. Mr. Ed