Yesterday afternoon I spent some time researching the bees problem. Trying to work out how my two hives died over this winter. I checked all the links you sent me (thank you) and these links took me to other links, I made notes and collated information and a miserable picture has appeared. After playing colour by numbers for a few hours I came to this preliminary conclusion. It was my fault. And it seems I am not alone this year.
I think it went like this. A long hot very dry summer caused a shortage of flowers, even the clover in the fields gave up early on. By September the hives had two full supers of honey each and strength in numbers, big numbers but no flowers at all by then.
The beautiful warm autumn was also long, but food was scarce so the bees began to eat their own honey much earlier than usual. 
I fed sugar water for a while but I really try not to. (I don’t believe refined sugar is good for their overall health.) So once it became cold I stopped. Mistake number one.
Anyway winter came after a while and we plummeted and rose and plummeted and rose and then rose some more then plummeted to ungodly cold then rose again until very warm and then plummeted again .. and still I did not feed them. Mistake number Two. Well you get the picture. 
I did not check to make sure they were close to their own honey. Sometimes for no reason they will die of starvation only inches from a full super. So the bees will have joined into their ball to get warm, pulled apart when the weather warmed up, huddled together to get warm again, then pulled apart again. And every time it got cold it was so fast that bees who had pulled away got lost and froze to death. 
Thousands of them. Why they did not move up to the honey is a mystery. But they died in the first half of the winter. If their Queen died early on often this would have exacerbated their problems.
And in both hives I have found the majority of dead bees clustered over empty frames. 
Human error. I should have checked them in each of those warm spells and considered feeding more, I usually only start feeding again in February/ March. I was too late this year. 
So far this is where my research is pointing me. I stumbled and they fell. But I have learned an important lesson and if I am able to buy two more colonies I will be more liberal with supplement feeding especially in any winter that has such frequent warm spells and such terrible cold on its heels.
There is no sign of disease or intruders. Everything smells sweet. Mites could have been a problem but my tests did not show any during the summer. So most all the signs point to human error compounded by bad bee weather.
My job now is to take the hives apart, scrape them and clean them, saving the honey. I shall dry them in the sun and cold. When I am sure they are spotless I shall reassemble the hives and introduce two new colonies in May. I have some work ahead of me. Ah well.
One thing I know for sure is that failures are the best learning experiences as long as we can look our failures in the eye and say: my fault. If I do not own the problem I cannot fix it. The misery is that two colonies of bees died to teach me to be more vigilant in the winter.
Of course, I am always grateful for any help and advice. There is a wealth of experience and knowledge within the farmy readership. So do speak up if you think I am missing something.
Soon it will be dawn and off to work I will go trying to grow our own food and trying to live a self sufficient life in a sustainable manner using organic methods. It is a challenge.
I hope you all have a lovely day. Do you think my new header is too bright? I am getting desperate for colour. I bet most of you are too.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
84 responses to “Human Error Kills Bees”
Love the new header! Glad you figured out the mystery of the bees and I’m sure you’ll have the hive humming again in no time.
Ah Cinders…I’m so sorry about your bees…as we all are…there isn’t a one of us out there that hasn’t stumbled along the way…and lots of us, in alot worse ways. But you’re right…we’re human and that is how we learn. We know how much you loved your bees…the new ones will be that much stronger! I loved the photos of the farmy lovelies today and the Kupa header is a sight for sore eyes…or should I say…color deprived eyes! 🙂
I think you are doing more for the world bee population than most of us – good luck with the next colonies 😉
That’s a great picture of Kupa 🙂
The header looks stunning, Sorry to hear about the bee’s
So sorry to hear about the bees C but I totally agree, as long as one can look his or her mistakes in the eye and say my fault, a lesson is learnt and some good comes out of the experience no matter how tough it is
Sorry about your bees; it’s a risk we all run, keeping them in our Northern climate, and I don’t think it’s really human/your error so much as this fact. They really struggle in my area because of the 9 months of damp, cool weather, so unlike the southern warmth of their native lands. I almost lost mine the first year due to this (after installation I fed for a while, then thought they were established enough…caught them in the nick of time) and last year for the same reason as yours – warm/cool/warm then an unusually prolonged cool and very wet May and June. I opened the lid and just gave them straight sugar as it was too chilly to open enough to put in the feeder, and they were ON it. Duh. The hive swarmed a few months later, so I guess it was healthy. I was so happy to see the swarm, knowing it meant they were strong and healthy enough to reproduce. I wish I could have caught the swarm, but they were too smart and congregated several hundred feet up, and gone to their new home in 24 hours.
Your lesson is one we all learn with you, and I’ll definitely get some supplemental food out to my girls on the next warm(ish) day. Thank you for sharing your story.
and thank you for popping in and sharing yours, interesting about the straight sugar!!.. keep in touch!.. c
Doing what you think best and making an error in judgement is a learning thing and someting we’ve all done, and it’s good that you’ve owned it but ‘if I’ds’ are hard to quantify in regard to outcomes – you may have fed more, checked more and still had the same outcome. As you said, other beekeepers experienced the same.
I love the new banner photo. My eyes just drink in Kupa’s colours.
Glad you found what went wrong; your photographs of the animals are fantastic; no header is fine; you must fall into bed at night; you are so hard working, intelligent and capable and creative; wow; what a gal! hugs
Hugs straight back.. c
Love the bottom three photos – giving you the eye with this story… 🙂
I love the new header and all of your pictures were fabulous to see! I’m sorry about the bees. Hopefully you can get it all ironed out and next winter will be just fine. 🙂
I think you are brave to own up to the world that you made a mistake but you are wise too because you understand why it happened and what not to do next time.
Your photos are really wonderful.
A question: I think you live in the USA? Why is your date already tomorrow?
I AM in the USA, and I have no idea why my date is wrong.. Thank you Rosie, I shall check into it.. I wonder if i have a gremli? c
Hi C….. here in sub-tropical Australia, we have totally different problems to yours. Let’s face it, beekeeping is hard work, and you will have failures. We have a core of seven hives here, and we lose two a year on average (so far) mostly due to small hive beetles that came from Africa when Australia held the Olympics in 2000…. ain’t globalisation grand? We just split some more and replenish. One upside of this climate is that we never ever feed our bee.
I’m planning to move away from here, too darn hot…. and go to Tasmania. Considered NZ, but the earthquake in Christchurch put the frighteners on me. Tassie’s nowhere near as cold as what you are experiencing…. and frankly I don’t know how you do it!
Great shots BTW….. from a retired pro no less! keep it up.
Mike
Well, I think you are a scientist as well as a writer.
P.S. and photographer.
Oh sugar, ain’t it going to be a grand spring as far as offspring and newspring [that is not a word, is it 🙂 ] is concerned! Can’t wait!!!!!