Salem

hi,

alot of my bee's are dying so i was wondering if iit made any difference if i store my bee-skelps in a house during the coldsnap... anyone tested this or has another way to keep them form dying?

ty keigh

I usually go with minimun of 6 bees and 1 queen per bee hive.
Maybe you are using less than that?
Checking them to often also may lead to 'early death'. I find that twice per day is the best if you are looking for royal jelly and more queens but once a day is best for producing honey. Though, then you might find some of the queens gone with half of your workers.
Queens do just die off sometimes but that is a whole other issue. My working theory on that is that a queen can produce a limited number of queens (number varies) and after that they just die off.

i usually keep 1 queen and a minimum of 8 drones, i only check every 2 days - a the start of this coldsnap all my hives were "full"(5 open slots for new bee or jelly) - now almost all are down to 5-6 drones - also i lost alot of queens

ZoddAlmighty wrote:Queens do just die off sometimes but that is a whole other issue. My working theory on that is that a queen can produce a limited number of queens (number varies) and after that they just die off.

Nah, because queens will eventually die in a shed, too. They have the same death mechanic as drones, as far as I can tell, just with a way longer timer.

Kandarim wrote:

ZoddAlmighty wrote:Queens do just die off sometimes but that is a whole other issue. My working theory on that is that a queen can produce a limited number of queens (number varies) and after that they just die off.

Nah, because queens will eventually die in a shed, too. They have the same death mechanic as drones, as far as I can tell, just with a way longer timer.

That works to.
We just never kept them outside of skeps.