Diagnosing a spring dead-out

Do not clean it up yet

Open it, photograph it, and read it before you touch anything. Where the cluster ended up, whether there are stores, what the dead bees are doing and what the comb looks like are all part of the same account.

Starvation

Bees head-first in cells, a tight small cluster, and often honey still in the hive but not where the cluster was. That is the commonest and most preventable outcome: a cluster cannot break in sustained cold to cross empty comb, so stores two frames away are unreachable.

The fix is next fall: more weight, and stores positioned above and beside the cluster rather than at the far end. That is preparing for winter.

Varroa collapse

Look for deformed wings among the dead, and for mite frass, white crystalline specks on the upper cell walls of brood cells. The fix is a full season earlier: monitor and treat in late summer, not October.

Queenlessness

A dwindling colony with no brood at all going into winter, or laying-worker signs like multiple eggs per cell and domed cappings. It was over before winter started, and the diagnosis belongs to fall inspections rather than to the weather.

Damp

Mold on the comb and on the dead bees, water marks inside the cover, a soaked bottom board. Damp kills more colonies than cold does, and it is a ventilation problem rather than an insulation one.

What to do with the equipment

Comb and stores from a colony that starved or dwindled are usable and valuable: drawn comb given to a new package is worth weeks. Freeze frames first to kill wax moth eggs, then store them sealed.

The exception is disease. If there is any sign of American foulbrood, sunken perforated cappings or larvae that rope, stop, do not move the frames anywhere, and contact your state inspector.

References