- 3 full honey bars in the back
- no bees in cells all on bottom
- no nosema
- not enough dead bees- suggests late fall losses
TB#2
- 2 full bars of honey (smaller amounts on other frames)
- no bees in cells
- no nosema
- normal amount dead on bottom
- 3 queen cells (empty)
- dead bees were toward the back
TB#3
- no full honey frames - small amounts on several
- a bit of nosema
- normal amount dead bees near entrance on the bottom
- This was a small T-Bar packed with comb. This was from a large captured swarm.
SUMMARY
It appears that all of these hives died early - Dec., Jan., early Feb.??? There are no obvious indicators of any one problem. Issues that might be expected like starvation, moisture or not being able to move in the cold are not indicated because of the dead bees on the bottom instead of in the cells. Remember that all 3 of these were brand new last summer - hard to imagine picking up a mite( tracheal or varroa) load that alone would take them down. Most likely we are seeing a combination of early harsh cold weather, low snow amounts for protection, and mites issues.
Again as with the post on regular hives, if anyone has ideas of what happened, I'm all ears.
Let me know what happened in your hives - maybe we will come up with a pattern.