Why do honey bees abscond in the fall?
Absconding is the term used when a colony of honey bees leaves its home in search of another. It is not the same as swarming. When a colony swarms, it splits in two parts: one part stays in the old...
View ArticleDead bees all over the place!
Many beekeepers become alarmed this time of year when they realize dead bees are covering the bottom board, piled on the landing board, laying on the outer cover, or scattered across the snow. It looks...
View ArticleWhy so many starving bees?
It was a winter of starving bees. In the past few weeks I’ve heard countless tales of beekeepers losing all or nearly all their colonies to starvation. Many of their hives contained not a single drop...
View ArticleDid your bees die of cold or starvation?
Many people argue that wintering honey bees seldom die of cold. Instead they die of starvation, either because they could not reach the food or because their food supply ran dry. In truth, the reason a...
View ArticleBees head-down in cells: did they starve?
When you find circles of honey bees head-down in cells, does that mean they starved? Were head-down bees licking the bottom of the cells to get every last morsel of honey? A reader raised these...
View ArticleRepeat after me: Nosema does not cause dysentery
Over the past year, Randy Oliver has published several informative articles in the American Bee Journal about the relationship between nosema disease and honey bee dysentery. If you haven’t read these...
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