Deadout Post-Mortem Check: Why Did Your Bees Die?

If you find one of your honey bee colonies dead at the end of winter (or at any time throughout the year) and don't know why it died, this video will help. Learn the signs of death due to the most common causes, and what you can do now with your equipment.

[@eranorion]

This is thee best explanation of Spring post-mortem I've seen. Concise!! Thanks for your service.

[@phillipthomas253]

Great job...very informative....thanks for showing. Did I see a green marked queen on one of those frames? 4:30?

[@betterbee1979]

Yes, you did! Good eye!

[@Blgtn43]

Thanks

[@ProfClaudeBalls]

How soon before wax moths take over the empty hive boxes?

[@Joshua-sj6zu]

This was a really good video, I just opened my hives and 3 out of 4 have died... lots of bees on the bottom board and lots of food left, I only treated them for mites in September...seems like they could have died of mite disease.
What should I do with all the brood frames? I also may have feed them to much syrup in the fall, every cell had been full.

[@betterbee1979]

Hi Joshua, we're sorry to hear about your bees. It's always tough to happen upon a deadout and we feel for you. Anne, our Head Beekeeper, recommends that you take close-up pictures of the cells in the brood frames and share them with your mentor or local bee club, to be sure that your bees didn't have foulbrood of any type that could be passed on to your new hive. Then, once you're clear there, you can just do a quick cleanup of the frames. There's no need to scrape off any comb; your new bees will clean out any dead brood or dead bees in the cells. She also recommends that, if you plan to put a new nuc, package, or swarm in these hive setups, leaving the cleaned-off frames out in the hive on their current stand so air can continue to flow around them, preventing molding. We hope this information helps!

[@KatRN1000]

I noticed the hive has a screened bottom board. What is the reason please?

[@betterbee1979]

Hi Kat! We use screened bottom boards in our large beekeeping operation predominantly to keep an eye on the debris and mites that fall through the screen and onto the tray. This lets us know if there are pests living inside and gives us other positive indicators, like if the bees are starting to produce new wax in the spring (meaning they are building up and expanding - what we want to see). Here's a great article on the different ways to use the "sticky board" in a screened bottom board: www.betterbee.com/instructions-and-resources/sticky-boarding-in-winter.asp. Let us know if you have other questions!

[@johnmenocal1633]

Is it safe to harvest the honey from a dead out hive??

[@BigRedNZ1]

Harvest, yes. Feed to another colony, no

[@iditarod4081]

The last comment doesn't make sense starvation cannot be caused by small cluster it's counterintuitive if you had a small cluster they'd have plenty of food

[@-Dwight-Schrute]

I believe what they mean is that a small cluster can't move to the food and will starve.