foto of our beehive with Miles the Wonder Dog by Tim Green
Status Report 180
We lost the hive
lost our girls
our babies
Went from 10,00 bees
to 70,000 bees
to none.
Our first year beekeeping
ends three months short.
Try again.
~
Dumped our first batch of 10,000 bees into our first hive last April 21. Those three pounds of bees grew to 70,000-80,000 and gave us 120 pounds of honey . . . and a lot of hard work.
They were fine last inspection. Now the hive is dead. They have plenty of untouched honey, so it’s not a food problem. The winter hasn’t been very cold, so that’s not it. Lady wrote that “It was probably from Nosema, a parasite that causes bee diarrhea. We saw that there was diarrhea around the top entrance of the hive. I think that they were more susceptible to dying from the cold because of Nosema.”
Now we have to burn the honey frames, take a blowtorch and scorch the inside of the hive, order another 10,000 bees with a queen for the spring (around $140) and try again.
I feel sad. Lady feels worse.
~
Status Report 181
One last dying bee clings to Lady
riding her back inside
saying goodbye
foto of our beehive by Tim Green