I need some advice on an observation hive at the local conservation center.  We can't keep the bees alive.
 
We've been at this for four years.  I've been supplying a regular contribution of bees (and happy to do so) but I wish they would live.  Instead, they die.  I replace them, and those bees die.
 
Earlier this spring, after a winter die off, I restocked the glass ob hive with three brood frames of bees and a marked queen.  They slowly died out to a handful of bees and no queen.  I replaced those frames with three frames of brood and bees and a marked queen.  In ten days, they died.  The exit tube was full of dead bees.  Cause remains unknown.  The original hive from which I robbed the queen and three frames remains active and healthy, making a new queen cell to replace the old one.
 
The staff cleaned up the dead bees and I restocked it again.  This was last week.  Today, the bees have mostly absconded, a handful clustered around the opening.  The brood in the ob hive has been abandoned, now dead and rotting.  The contributing hive, back in one of my bee yards, remains healthy.
 
It's been like this for four years.  I've pulled a variety of bees from multiple hives.  The donor hives always continue to thrive.  I've even got a healthy ob hive in my honey house.  These remain healthy.  Once introduced to the ob hive at the nature center, they dwindle, or lately, crash without reservation and without explanation.
 
I'm at a loss to explain the deaths.
 
Any ideas on why, or what factors are contributing to the demise of these bees?
 
Grant
Jackson, MO


      

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