HI folks,
I too am a new bee keeper just starting. I had a swarm of
bees in my old bird aviary, took up residence in the nesting box. They have lived there quite happy for between four and six years now, untouched and uncared for. Last winters bad weather finally put pay to the aviary and that combined with the weight of the bees and their honey it collapsed to the floor.
Still the bees lived on quite happily in the semi broken box. They seemed healthy, happy and hard working and having survived six winters must be reasonably healthy and free from disease.
however I was concerned that they may not survive another winter in such a condition so I called in the
local bee keepers for help. they very kindly helped me to re-house the bees in one of their borrowed hives whilst I ordered my own new hives. All seemed well, despite the huge upheaval of cutting out all the comb and transferring it to the new brood box, the bees just continued on regardless in their new home, gathering honey for all they were worth. However, about three days later, I awoke to find that there were a huge amount of dead bees all around the hive, Probably a few hundred or more.
My bee keeper friends tell me it is natural that bees die every six weeks or so, but this is a new hive, so they would not be clearing it out yet. I think most of the bees were drones, but I cannot be sure of that as I am so inexperienced at the moment and it is hard to tell when they are dead. Bees seem to be coming and going all the time and still gathering although the weather has been wet and cold again so less activity than normal. the bees are very gentle and despite all the disruption they have put up with, they have never thought once of going on the attack as they would well be entitled to have done.
If as some of your comments suggest this is a normal cyclical death pattern, am I to expect a load of dead bees every six week then? or can anyone think of any other reason for the dead bees. If they are drones is there a reason for this? I thought they did not kill the drones until the autumn.