The Death of a Hive

I lost my last 5 frame nuc this past week and I thought I would share some pics and maybe a little about what I learned in the experience. I started out the fall with a couple of 5 frame nucs. Some experienced beekeepers suggested combining for the winter but I couldn't bring myself to kill off the queens and consolidate the hives so I set out to figure out how to keep them from freezing the the unpredictable North Georgia winter. I first tried moving them indoors like you see on some of the websites out there. The bees went straight back to their old spot and just hung out there until I moved the nucs back into place. I then tried stacking and bunching them together until finally I was down to just 1 nuc. My final attempt was to build a box around my last nuc and drop a 40 watt light bulb with a timer into the box. On warm days I would shut it off and on cold days I would override the timer to maintain a constant temp. To my surprise my last nuc made it through to spring! Well almost to spring. A few weeks ago we had one of those warm pre-spring days that gets you dreaming of longer days and blooming flowers. I was excited to see activity around my hive and I decided to do my first pre-spring inspection. I was pleased to see that my nuc appeared to be healthy. There were a decent amount of bees and the queen was laying a small amount of eggs with sealed brood and honey all around. I realized that they had set up shop in the opposite corner from where the light bulb was placed and probably did that to avoid getting too warm. The day was beautiful and there was 60 degree temps in the 10 day forecast! I decided not to put my outer box back on but rather buddy up an empty nuc with the light bulb inside it to provide that final source of heat of the season. A few cold nights later I realized there was no more activity around my hive and something was terribly wrong. One warm afternoon I cracked the lid open and saw a few bees milling around but the once robust hive was far too quiet. This past Saturday with temps in the low 60s, I did a full inspection and this is what I found. It appears that with the outer box no longer over the nuc, the heat from my little 40 watt bulb wasn't enough to keep the cluster from freezing. All that was left was a cluster of dead molding bees and the remnants of sealed brood that is never going to emerge. I learned a couple of things from this experiment: first, if you can consolidate weaker hives in the fall, do it. One hive making it through the winter is better than none. Second, your bees need strong numbers to survive those cold winter days, If you decide to try to provide a heat source, it's best to find a way to fully cover your nucs and find a way to provide enough heat but not too much. A 40 watt light bulb was probably too much in my case and hard to regulate leading the bees to cluster on one side of the hive rather than the middle. And lastly, any time you have a weak hive it is going to be vulnerable to fluctuating temps, do what you can to avoid adding to the volatility of a weak hive. If you find yourself doing something that seems to be working, keep it up, manipulating your hive too much creates a lot of work for your bees and in the late winter/early spring, these guys need all the rest they can get. Its about to get real busy!