When down to the Collingwood Children’s Farm on Monday to check their 9 hives. The sun was out and it was going to be a warm day with a possible shower or two in the afternoon.
All the hives were active with bees flying in and out, bar one. In the front of this hive there were lots of dead bees and many dying bees being dragged out. The hive was healthy and doing well a week ago.
On opening the hive there was that nasty smell of death and lots of dead bees.
On inspecting the brood box healthy brood and a small number of eggs could be seen indicating that there was a good chance there was a . We took off the honey box and clean out the brood box. If we had some syrup we would have fed them, but we didn’t have any on site. The frames that were taken off have been frozen and we will decide next week if we will reuse them or not.
There was no indication of disease such as American Foul Brood. It could have been poison but no other hive seemed to be impacted. We will return in a week reassess and bring some food for them.
Tony Wilsmore
27/10/2020
Update: We inspected the hive a week after the initial visit and found few dead bees, a little chalk brood and that they were queenless. We requeened the hive and gave them two zip bags of 1:2 syrup with some Agrisea. We will be back in 2 weeks.
Tony Wilsmore
3/11/2020