Beetle maggots and robber bees spell impending doom.

www.studiobeeproductions.com
I really wish every video I made showed a happy, healthy, and thriving bee colony, but in reality, that's not how it is. Sometimes, and thankfully not often, when I show up, the hive is on the verge of collapse., and as sad as that is, our video this week depicts such an event.

By the time I received the call concerning this hive, it had been exposed to the elements for at least 10 days. Now, we are talking about a Louisiana summer where daytime temps can reach the upper 90's by 10 in the morning, and if you are lucky, by 12 that night, the temps may have dropped to the upper 70's to cool things down.....and don't forget that 100% humidity to really make things sticky.

So, as you can well imagine, this colonies future was greatly diminished. Still, I am always hopeful about rescuing a hive and it beating the odds, so I gave it a go. As soon as I got up into the tree, I smelled fermenting honey along with a rotten smell, I knew it was not good sign. Then, almost as soon as I started vacuuming bees and exposing the comb, robber bees started showing up, this removal was going downhill at record speed.

I managed to vacuum a bunch of bees before the robber bees became to numerous, but then the real disaster was exposed, the comb was full of beetle maggots. Still, I was not overly concerned as I had 5 frames of drawn out comb with lots of honey in it for them as they would not be getting any of their own comb due to the beetle larva.

And now, the rest of the story. After an unsuccessful queen capture, I took the vacuumed bees and brought them to our St. Jude Yard and released them onto the new comb, there were a few thousand of them. The following day, I returned to the tree, found and captured the queen, if you watch the post video you will see that adventure, and went to reunite her with her bees on the fresh comb. When I got to the yard and opened the box, all the bees had absconded. Now I was left with a queen and no bees. I posted on our bee club platform the availability of a queen, and within 5 minutes, I had 3 takers. The next morning she was picked up and went to a hive that had been queenless for almost a week. The bees immediately accepted her, and the hive is doing well as of this posting. I am still scratching my head as to why the bees absconded, but I am leaning to the theory that the stress of whole ordeal made these bees act in an unusual manner.

I apologies for posting a not so happy ending video, but it's all part of keeping bees, and even that side needs to be shown to give a full picture of the reality of the hobby we love so much. God's peace to all. Mr. Ed