Varroa Mite Treatment for Bees

Don’t despair over your dead colony. Instead, identify the problem and find preventative solutions to keep the rest of your hives healthy.

Reader Contribution by Julia Miller
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by Adobestock/Vadim

 There is an audio version of this article for your listening pleasure.  Scroll down use a little bit and look for the “Audio Article” link.

Dead-outs: that dreaded event in a beekeeper’s world when an entire colony of bees dies in the hive.

It was a heartbreaking day in mid-December when we found that one of our colonies had died out. Every few weeks throughout winter, a day rolls around that’s warm enough (50 degrees Fahrenheit) to check the hives. Typically, we add candy boards during these checks as a supplemental food supply. Two of the three colonies were thriving, but the third contained only dead bees.

After taking a moment to apologize to the queen and feel sorry for ourselves and the bees, I decided to learn from this unfortunate experience.

Causes of Dead-Out Hives

  • Updated on May 22, 2022
  • Originally Published on May 6, 2014
Tagged with: Five Feline Farm, Illinois, Julia Miller, Reader Contributions, small hive beetles, varroa mites
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