Bees In Trouble Again

Another hive is dwindling and I do not know what to do about it. This is the one that got all moldy and gross in December. I had added a few frames of brood from the stronger hive and cleaned up the mold and wet frames in hopes it would give them a better chance of making it through winter. I was just out there looking at them today and saw that they are really weak and have hardly an bees in their colony. So few I was able to open the hive without any protective gear. Tomorrow I open all of them up to see what is going on but in the meantime I have to figure out if there is anything I can do to help.

I found a great bee blog by this guy in West Virginia and he suggests taking young bees and larvae out of a stronger hive and adding them to the weak colony. But I thought that if you mix bees from two colonies that they will fight to the death and also kill the queen by making a giant bee ball around her and suffocating her. He says that if you spray them with a mix of sugar water and spearmint oil it masks their hive phermone for enough time for them to get used to each other. They clean the sugar water off each other and by the time they are done they all smell like they come from one colony. Of course, it might not work and then I will have a giant bee war on my hands. Hard choice. Let the little hive starve and die or introduce possibly aggressive bees into its house in an effort to save it.

I can also make this stuff called bee patties...basically brewer's yeast, soy flour and sugar water mixed in such proportions that it turns into a thick sticky paste that you then spread on wax paper and drop in the top of the hive boxes for them to snack on. This bee blogger says that you can see the happy increase in bee activity in a few hours. I want to do that for all the bees, expecially the little sick colony, but do not have time to make any tonight or tomorrow in time to get it in the hive by the time I open them up at 2pm. I have to do some unexpected gardening work tomorrow so I am busy till 2. And I have to open them and get them all closed back up before it gets cold and the sun goes away. Not much time for making bee patties with a 5 gallon bucket, a drill and a paint stirring attachment.

Then I learn that honey is not the best food for bees! Why do they make it? They prefer nectar and pollen first. They will eat honey if they are really hungry, so I guess it is like me carrying powerbars around. I don't really like them but they will do in a pinch.





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