In this series of Buyer Beware articles, I share some personal experiences as well as some pitfalls and challenges that new beekeepers that I have come into contact with have experienced. Buyer Beware | Part 1 focused on getting the right information from the seller prior to making a commitment to purchase nucs or full hives.
Here, I share with you what you can expect when you take on 'abandoned' or 'rescue' hives.
Bee Maths and Skillsets
I was contacted to assist a fairly new beekeeper with their hives. Fairly new because they had only been keeping bees for about a year. The newbee had initially purchased 4 hives which they managed comfortably.Â
They then became hooked on bees (who wouldn’t?!!) and took up the opportunity of acquiring another 9 hives from a retiring beekeeper. These latter hives would be what I consider 'abandoned hives' as they had not been well managed during the prior few years before being sold. The retiring beek was moving them on because they realised they could no longer give them the attention that they needed. A common story. The newbee was aware of this when they took them on however, and felt they were up to the challenge.
The newbee attempted some inspections, and even found a bee buddy to assist. The bee buddy was also fairly new and they ended up being too overwhelmed with what they were dealing with. They also felt they were not confident in what they were doing due to their limited experience with abandoned hives. This is when I was contacted to assist.
The Original 4
We started by inspecting those first four hives. The previous inspection done by the newbee a couple of months before showed they were doing well. Which was great to hear because it had been an extremely poor season for nectar with unseasonably cold and wet weather. A lot of beeks were feeding their hives just to keep them alive. It had been said by some that this was the worst year in the previous 50 years of beekeeping. Certainly not the best season to experience in your first year of keeping bees!
But when we opened these four hives we found that only two of them had survived since that last inspection. And one of those two hives was queenless and needed to be transferred to a nuc box and given a new queen, or merged with another hive.
The other hive was queenright and was doing okay. There were limited stores but enough to see them through for now.
The Other 9
Now to the other nine hives. These were a real disappointment. Only two of these hives were in any reasonable condition. Most were deadouts with lots of dead bees, chalkbrood, mould, moisture, dark (black) comb, and fermenting honey.
One I referred to MyPestGuide. I have seen plenty of funky hives before, but this one was something a little different.
I was surprised to find that within 10 minutes of submitting my report via the app, I received a phone call asking for more information. I was referred to our Bee Biosecurity Officer (who is a fabulous person, by the way!) who informed me that it was nothing sinister and was a secondary pest that was taking advantage of the conditions within the abandoned hiveware. I must say that I took great comfort in experiencing first-hand the fastidiousness of MyPestGuide.
I tried to document as much as I could from these hives. Some looked like the bees had been snap frozen on the frames and then coated in a layer of mould. Others looked like they had slime outs. Something we do not see in WA as we do not have small hive beetle (except in the quarantine area up north in the Kimberley). This was caused by moisture and fermenting honey.
It also did not help that these hives had been positioned with their entrances facing the weather. I suggested that the bees were not able to regulate the temperature and ended up literally freezing on the frames. And extra moisture from the excessive rain caused the mould to build up.
Not all hives were a complete disaster. One of the viable hives had a WSP super replaced with a full depth to enable frame rotation. There were also a couple that were queenright but were very weak. These were packed down to a single super to help the bees keep the internal climate at optimum levels within the hive.
All the deadouts were closed up with instructions on how to clean up and start again. The old combs would be scraped down and responsibly stored until the bonfire was ready to be lit. The hardware was to be cleaned down and stored until ready to use again. Any hardware that was too far gone was also destined for the fire.
We then turned the hives 90 degrees. They would be turned again the following week, by which time they would be facing away from the weather.
While the newbee had all the right intentions, it was unfortunate that they had decided to take up beekeeping during an extremely poor season. And taking on hives in such poor condition, with limited experience, was also bound to be a challenge.
It must have been fairly overwhelming as a newbee. A positive to come from it all though, is that there were still viable colonies that could easily be split the following spring to expand the apiary back up to its original hive numbers, so all was not lost!
Are you tempted to acquire hives that are being 'moved on'? I encourage you to do an assessment inspection, so you know exactly what you are up for, and are confident that you have the skills to take on such a project.
Helen Humphreys Passionate Beekeeper Trainer | Mentor | Producer
Did you miss Part I of our Buyer Beware Series? Read it HERE.
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