Guests Checking Out Of The Bee Hotel
Back in May and June last year I posted about my Eleven Guests At The Bee Hotel (or Interactive Mason Bee Management System House as it’s known in the States). This American name still makes me smile and continues to remind me of a story a friend, who worked in Houston, told me, about a colleague who ran into the room to say that the “European Electric Water Heater was about to explode” when he was simply boiling a kettle.
Well … an incredible 11 months later they have started removing the mud plugs and checking out.
And this is what it looked like in June last year.
I was really surprised at how long they have stayed. I thought they would just be in their a few weeks. At times over the winter I thought they must have died. I have now read up on the life cycle of the Mason bee and understand the eggs get laid in Spring and by the summer, the larva has consumed all of its food and begins creating a cocoon around itself and then enters the pupal stage. The adult matures in the autumn or winter and hibernates inside the cocoon until Spring.
Winter Colony Losses
So whilst it appears that I might have zero winter losses for these Mason bees, my honeybee colonies have suffered higher losses.
If you have experienced high winter colony losses you are not alone. I have documented my losses and have had numerous emails from readers regarding theirs. The email below is typical and from a follower of this blog who has been beekeeping about 2 years:
“I have been following your exploits and I can empathise as I did grow to 3 hives at home last year from my initial 2 nucs, but they were quite weak even at the end of the summer. I lost one over the winter, very similar to yourself. Of the other 2 one is hanging in and I have brood but the 2nd which was a virgin queen I actually witnessed hatch last year and was going strong has suddenly gone AWOL/ more likely died ; and I have no brood. Strangely all hives have masses of store. Anyway I have consolidated the remaining 2 which in hind sight I should have done last year to try and strengthen the colony. So at home I have 2 vacant hives as well.
At work I homed a swarm I collected in July and she is text book and gave us 40 x 8oz jars of honey compared to the 26 jars from 3 hives at home. She has loads of room and I have a spare hive there ready to split if I need to in a few weeks time.”
With oil seed rape beginning to show their yellow flowers, the first nectar flow is almost upon us. Good luck to all!
Read More
- Eleven Guests At The Bee Hotel
- My Winter Losses
- Where we are in the Beekeeping Calendar
- Amazon links to the bee hotel: UK Link / USA Link
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Our local teaching apiary has also suffer major losses, and a very knowledgable member has come up with this explanation….. We had a cold August after a long hot summer. Our queens (especially 2014/green queens) started to slow down laying and started laying winter bees. Then the weather warmed, and the bees became more active…..unfortunately the winter bees which were meant to survive the winter, were then out foraging into October, meaning they would have shorter lives and therefore less likely to survive until spring. Many beekeepers who have lost colonies or have very weak colonies reported good activity at the entrance at the start of the year, during good weather. Unfortunately many of the winter bees did not survive the whole of the winter (they just worked too hard in the autumn), so the cluster is too small to be viable. Hopefully this makes sense…it did when it was explained to me, but it is difficult to put down on paper.
Thanks Tracey. That makes sense and could have contributed to some colony losses this year.