I'm back! Somehow - I stopped recieving mail from the Bee list. Probably
the  Internet host I was using, which has had mail problems all fall,
returned too much mail as undeliverable and booted me off!
 
It's been quite a difficult fall - and I am at loss as to why, more or
less. I had an excellent summer - with 3 producing hives producing 96#
per hive - and 2 other hives well packed for winter. In fact, all 5 hives
had good amounts of winter honey, pollen - all totalling around 100 pound
each. All had new queens, no signs of mites of any kind, no signs of disease.
All hives seemed very strong going into the fall.
 
After removing supers, the wasps seemed to move in. We had one of the
worst falls as far as wasps are concerned. In response to the wasps I
closed up enterences to 1 or 2 bee spaces - but the wasps seemed to still
get the upper hand. I thing one of my hives absconded to get away!
 
Eventually I had 2 hives that seemed strong enough to get through. After
the wasps left, however, one of them seemed to just dwindle away.
Eventually, some freezing weather seemed to do that hive in. So I have
one hive and the bees seem spunky enough.
 
Did anyone else in W. Washington have similar experiences?
 
Another possibility: I failed to medicate the bees w/ terramycin.
Fortunately, foulbrood is not very common here (whereas Varroa is -
although so far I have been lucky). But are there any other minor
diseases that the terra could have prevented that were weakening the bees?
 
I look forward to April - and newly populated hives!
Casey Burns