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Bees work up or down. If there's a few inches between cluster and food..... they will starve out.

They stick heads in cells for to keep a dense ball. Where were stores vs all the bees with heads in cells?

I went to 8 frame equipment in North Idaho. There is less reliance on side to side movement. I also moved to quilt boxes on top. I had the least losses with unwrapped, quilt box hives. I moved hives to a protected shed that shared a wall with my shop on two different years. Lost them all...

Most likely the second option. When you tear apart the colony, where were the bees in relation to the capped stores? Cold bees move up fairly easy. They cannot move sideways frame to frame so easily. If you're on wax foundation, they can/will chew completely through the comb to allow the...

Sugar water still has to be pre digested, then thickened. Feed time is before it gets cold. Almost all commercial beekeepers feed. It's less for corn syrup than it is for honey. Steal all the honey, feed corn syrup to pack into now empty combs to survive the winter. Definite balancing act...

Chickens seem to leave them alone. Mine will pick through and eat all the larvae that are packed out by the colony, but dead bee bodies are left well alone.

Heads buried in the cells?

Make sure they center the comb on the frame. If they build it wavy, cut top and gently bend where you want it. Ideally foundationless frames get put between two drawn frames. These don't need any attention. Bees draw them without help 99% of the time. Beesource has a huge bee forum with lots...

They will. Just have to keep an eye on it.

They will reuse some chewed caps, but most is secreted. I think it has to be to get it to properly bind together.

Starving bees typically have heads down inside holes with butts sticking out. No stores, or any stores that are there are two frames away. Take a close look at the pile of bees. Any deformed wings? This is the time of year also that varroa load gets terminal due to shrink in colony size for...

^^^ This. If it’s been cold for a while, then warmed up enough to do housekeeping, you will see this.

Package bees kick them out early. Bees that have been here a few years feed the bums and keep them around until after fall flow. I will put 30lbs on Sept1 to Halloween.

Typically kick them out after last fall flow or first frost.

Thanks!! I owe credit to my wife. It was a very small Sept swarm. First one that I’ve ever hived, had them fan at the entrance, then decide to leave two hours later. We hived them again and she combed through the bees until she found the virgin queen. Stuffed her in a cage threw feed on them...

She will really puff up this spring. I have enough bees to cover two opposing faces of a frame about the size of a dinner plate. When she can lay 7-900 eggs a day, her abdomen will be half again as big.

Virgin queen from a Sept 4 or 5 swarm. If they don’t make it, I’ll have good resources. But.... trying like hell to get them up to speed.

Sugar water doesn’t work quite as well as smoke, but it is effective. These bees are pissed at the world before he even knocks on the front door.

Kinda like a rooster. Deal with them now, it only gets worse.