Breaking Down the Little Top Bar Hive

Deadout Post Mortem

Marty had said that the colony died before the first cold snap, so I'd been assuming that mites were the problem. Breaking down the hive, this is what we found.

• Was too much honey harvested? Honey was plentiful with at least 2 "frames" of pollen.
• Cappings on the brood combs looked normal, so I ruled out AFB. There was no discernible "brood nest" but I believe the spotty pattern is a result of good housekeeping.
• DWV. I didn't see deformed wings among the dead, but with a hygienic colony that's normal. A thin layer of dead bees on the floor is a sign IMO that our bees were good housekeepers. 
• Mite Count. There were plenty of dead mites in the debris pile, which is to be expected with any Winter colony. As the bee population drops toward the end of the year, the mites-per-bee ratio goes up. Then as the bees die, the number of mites on the floor will seem disproportionately high.
• Mite Poop. Loads of it! At first glance the brood combs looked clean. When I rotated one so I could see the cell roofs… totally different story. Look at the 11th photo in the slideshow.

I have a theory that colonies started from packages will fail no later than their second Fall. How to prevent this in the future? I've already decided that our next colony will be treated with MAQS and/or Fall requeening every other year. I'm determined to be a better beekeeper, and for me that means keeping my hives close. The outyard thing isn't working for me but since I haven't gone through enough VIT to not anaphylax (?) due to bee sting, I'm on the fence. 

From Booming to Deadout

The hive in early September, full of bees.

The hive in early October. A reduction in population is normal,
but we're worried about their low numbers.

The hive in late October. Population has really declined
and they've positioned themselves far from food.

The hive in mid-November. There are not enough bees to make it through Winter.

Early December: the floor below the cluster.

We opened up the hive and inspected every comb to try to determine what happened. There were not a lot of bees in the hive, and none were alive. They'd eaten all their overhead stores, so were out of food in the brood nest. If you follow my tweets, you'll recall that honeybees can last only 3 days if not in direct contact with food. If they can't break cluster to get to food, then a 4-day cold snap can mean starvation. We didn't have any extended cold periods in November and we saw that they were breaking cluster, so something else did them in.