63 What happened

Of the two hives we had one died over the winter. Timothy send me this answer when I reported to him in February when the sun came out that there wasn’t any activity in one of the hives. ‘Both hives should have adequate feed as both are on double brood box and received substantial autumn feed. However it is quite possible that one of the hives had died out. This is a normal process with beekeeping with winter mortality rates in Ireland averaging about 10%. I expect this rate to be quite lot higher this year (30%+) with a combination of the bad summer for queens mating and pollen gathering followed by the mild and damp winter. It is very difficult to keep the hives dry this winter as there is no real let up with the weather.. Winter deaths in hives can have several different causes from disease (nosema, varroa or acarine) to bad stores (fermented stores etc.) or queen issues (failing queen, unmated queen, attempted supercedure that failed, loss of queen).’ As it turned out one hive was dead and one was thriving. Timothy even put a new storey on top. But he couldn’t find the queen. The old queen that he had marked and clipped must have died and been replaced by a new queen. This time around he came with a van full of starter hives and brood boxes intend on literally making the most of the thriving hives and the consistently good weather spell we’ve been having. The sketch is of the inside of the van and the antique smoker Timothy restored for daily use. (The Beekeepers Van 27-05-16)