Lost another hive

[indypartridge]

First time I've lost a colony in April.

On Apr-2 I did an inspection of all my over-wintered colonies, took off the candy boards and hive-insulation. Re-arranged boxes to make sure queens had plenty of room to lay.

Then we had a 10-day cold snap of freezing temps, snow, sleet and cold rain.

One of the colonies which had made it through winter (barely), didn't have a very big cluster and once the cold snap hit it didn't have enough bees to keep all the brood warm and died trying.  

To have a colony make it though winter and die in April just bugs me. Especially since if I had left them alone two weeks ago, they probably would have survived. But two weeks ago I was seeing lots of signs of an early swarm season, and wanted to open up the brood nests.

[Deleted]

Oh, that is sad. Was the cold snap forcasted? If they were really small and weak I may have left them sugar boarded up a bit longer.

[hobbitlady]

indypartridge, I'm so sorry to hear that. I know the pain of "helping" my bees;really thinking I'm doing my "keeping" job, and then having it backfire too. I hope your weather warms up for good soon,you get a huge flow this year ,and can do a split nice and early and get that hive going again!

[indypartridge]

Apr 16, 2016 15:18:50 GMT @charmd2 said:

Oh, that is sad. Was the cold snap forcasted? If they were really small and weak I may have left them sugar boarded up a bit longer.

The forecast was for a few cool days, frost warnings at night. We ended up with snow, sleet, and freezing temps for about 10 days. Hard to know what to do sometimes with such erratic & unpredictable spring weather. 

[Deleted]

Yeah, that makes it difficult. I hope you catch an easy swarm to make up for it.

[dw]

That is what happened last Nov. to us. It wasn't a big healthy hive but we were SAD. Starting out with two new ones this spring. They'll be here the end of the month.