Spring Hive Inspection

[Jeanne Hansen]

It was so warm and sunny that I inspected my bees on Monday.  Happily, I have 100% over-wintering success, for the 3rd year in a row.

The news is that ONE bee had a load of pollen.  There must have been one flower, in some very warm and sheltered corner, and this bee found it!  How did it do it??

Beekeeping is fun.

JEANNE

--

Jeanne Hansen

824 Jacobson Ave

Madison,WI

608-244-5094

[John Thompson]

Was it really pollen, not hay dust or something? 

Cause if it really is pollen, that's pretty amazing. 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "madbees" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to madbees+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/madbees/CAJgVaprDL6NUVwL7wYERW1HqXOdp3gFwobGFO7WAnT8Hs15S2Q%40mail.gmail.com.

[walter kugler jr]

Jeanne, are you anywhere near a lowland area or slow moving stream? If so it might be Skunk Cabbage.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/madbees/CALTujN-zu2-DEB99n%2BFPpyBooPbfugne%2B1cfqAizxpAiW8ZM4g%40mail.gmail.com.

[marvin]

My bird feeders were full of bees the other day.  They really load up on seed dust.  Good sign regardless.

[marvin]

Maples are blooming and the bees are hammering them.  

[Dawn Morales]

Hello All, 

I know that if I ask 10 beeks a question I will get 400 different responses. However, I do want all of your opinions. 

I have a deadout and have taken the hive apart cleaning the bees off the frames and put all the frames (with honey) in a bin to prepare for my new bees coming in May. Here is my question. Do I need to clean out all the dead bees that are inside the cells? Like pluck them out with tweezers etc. I tried to kind of gently tap them out but it was breaking the comb off and the honey/necture is leaking out. 

What should I do?

Thanks!!

Dawn Morales

[John Thompson]

New bees will clean them out. You could try freezing them if you have the space. 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "madbees" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to madbees+u...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/madbees/CADROsMQd3mU0PZK9_ORDTu134mFN%2BeR1OMci3gGg5zWW4k_%3DMw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Jack Rademacher]

Clean it up as much as you can and the bees will take care of it after that 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/madbees/CALTujN_M1X2brMUMW%3DuYxmEeEnohC7%3DwG35qrBSERnx-rC3evg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Jeanne Hansen]

Yes, the new bees will pull the dead ones out of the cells and drop them on the bottom board.  Pay attention here.  Don't panic when you see cupfulls of dead bees on the bottom board.  They are the ones that died last winter.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/madbees/CACjiAXn5%2B9kC5TdZkb8EHH_mF4LuXS-aZe3_6%2B9-Qf5_NryB_Q%40mail.gmail.com.

[marvin]

Ya, what everyone said.  Another thing to know is that if you have frames that look really groaty with mold and dead bees and all sorts of destruction, they'll clean that up too.  Some folks are inclined to throw those frames out, but they're really amazing in how well they'll clean and reuse "bad" frames.

[Paul Zelenski]

Yes, but ... 

If there are dead bees in the cells and you let them rot and mold and then dry out, the bees will have a hard time cleaning them out. The mold kind of glues them in place. The bees can react to this by either entombing them, which leaves that cell unusable, or chewing them out cell walls and all. If the chew out the cell walls, you will have an empty spot on the frame that they will hopefully fill back in with comb. It will be similar to them starting over, though, and they may replace it with drone comb if they're needing more drones. 

So, all the advice is accurate, but I would try to avoid letting them get super moldy and then drying out, which solidifies them in place. If you can help it, of course. I still wouldn't throw out the comb if that does happen, though. 

---

From: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of marvin <marvin...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2025 11:28 AM
To: madbees <mad...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [madbees] Deadout hive

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/madbees/41955235-ffa1-4901-a51e-f4b745837b5dn%40googlegroups.com.