Cold Wet Moldy Bees

While I was away in Florida there were two weeks of intense wind and rain storms in San Francisco. The colony that first got me into beekeeping experienced a major setback during these storms. Somehow, the waterproof cover leaked and left the bees with a soggy cold wet home. This colony had been going like gangbusters in the summer and fall, but today there were just a few depressed bees loitering around the entrance. I opened up the hive and was sad to see that about 60-70% of the bees were gone and blue mold was covering the brood comb.

Outside the hive on the ground were hundreds of waxy white brood, tossed out by the worker bees. I reduced the hive down to one box and managed to find 10 frames that were not too moldy. I felt terrible for the creatures having to live in the cold wet hive for the duration of the bad weather. I hoped that they would recover. I opened the stronger hive and took out two frames of capped brood and stuck it into the weaker hive hoping it would boost their population fast enough for them to make a comeback.

I did manage to get a few frames of capped honey the smaller hive would not be needing.