Sadly we have to report the demise of our lovely Queen B and
the Beebettes.
The difference in behaviour between the Beebettes and the G
Bees has been more and more noticeable and in the recent spell of mild weather
the G Bees were crowding on the landing board of their hive both sunbathing and
busily taking off and landing with pollen.
Meanwhile there continued to be no signs of life in the
Beebettes’ hive so, with trepidation, we took advantage of the weather to take
off the roof of the hive and bang on the side of the brood chamber. This produced no buzz, no reaction so we took
off the crown board. At this point it
became obvious that the fondant (a just in case extra food supply) was
untouched. Likewise the pollen
patty. Then we took out the end frame
which was still undrawn foundation.
Progressing the frame by frame through the brood chamber we found the
Beebettes hadn’t built up any more than when we last inspected the hive back in
September. There were frames heavy with
stores including those around the empty brood cells. We found a few dead bees emerging from cells
and it was a disheartening business.
We immediately got out all the information we could find
about bee diseases to see whether our bees had succumbed to some disease that
we should report to the bee inspectors but it appeared not. We conferred with more experienced beekeepers
too.
When we dismantled the hive we found dead bees covering the
mesh varroa floor. We inspected
these carefully for signs of disease like deformed wing virus but they all
appeared to be normal little bees.
Reviewing our hive records we saw Queen B every time we
inspected the Beebettes except at the last inspection before we put on varroa
treatment and commenced Autumn feeding.
We assumed she was there somewhere and we just missed her, not least because Queen G always hides but now we
wonder. By October we were recording
changed behaviour by the Beebettes on their landing board which we attributed
to the time of year. We also observed
wasps entering the hive late in the Autumn when the Beebettes would already
have been clustering together. Our
hunch, therefore, is that the Beebettes went in to the Winter without a Queen, there weren't enough of them to defend themselves from robbing wasps
and the colony died out.
