Farmfresh said:
So you still have one live queen and some workers and brood. Is there any chance of recovery for that hive if the Spring is kind to them?
Also ... another wondering thought ...
What if you cleaned up the extra hive and just left it out, with minimum starter gear, and "available". Is it possible that a wild swarm might take up residence? After all you do have other honey bees in your area.
No, FF, both queens were dead...and all the rest of both colonies as well. So not much else to do except leave the one hive set up to see if a swarm will move in this year. We do have a number of other beeks in the area...I know of a couple less than a mile away in the village. I think these were the bees enjoying the Hawthorne tree yesterday.
It was sad seeing that the bees seemed not to have been prepared for the 70 daytime temp to freezing that night. There were a LARGE number of bees that looked like they died while walking across frames. And about 35 bees looked like they had died while eating the pollen patty and on the floats of the HBH sugar syrup.
I didn't go to the last 2 beek assoc meetings here - but have seen some members at church and grocers. They have all had losses as well; some are estimating that the April freeze killed some of their colonies as well. However, since we only had the 2 colonies, we took a pretty big hit.
Temps today are in the low 50s. We have rain. Tomorrow night we are supposed to drop into the mid 30s again, with rain predicted for the week. :/
With the honey frames I had pulled in autumn to save for spring feeding added to the ones remove yesterday, we have a total of 18 frames of honey.
I guess this is my HAPPY-SAD news. While it is nice to have the honey to extract, I would have much rather have used it to feed bees in the hive......
Sorry they didn't make it. Maybe you'll be able to capture a swarm.
I'm so sorry.
