Hello fellow beekeeps, The following is a post I placed on the GardenWeb hoping to find some answers. I thought I would try you all since you are much more experienced with beekeeping. Any help would certainly be appreciated. "Yesterday (in Kentucky)we were blessed with temps in the low 60's with partly sunny skies. Perfect weather to check the bees. It was a sad day in the Luna Apiaries, though. I went into the winter having lost 4 colonies to robbing.(Due to improper feeding methods-lesson learned) Apparently it looks like the robbing is still going on. I do not know if the robbers are from my existing hives or if they have come out of the woods behind the house. I do know that we lost a couple of swarms to mother nature this past summer. I reduced the hive entrances so only one bee can come and go at a time. I fear this will not stop the problem. Does anyone have any suggestions? I considered moving the hives to a new location-some in one spot and the rest in another. Now for the really bad news. Six of my hives were dead. There were many bees with their heads in the cells trying to find honey I guess. The rest of the bees in each hive had fallen to the floor. Before you say "they were starving" let me point out that many of the bees were literally right next to a cell of honey. And I know the bees barely move in any increments at all when it is cold outside. We just finished with a really cold snap where the wind chills were -10 for a few days. When I looked at the bees yesterday they were still moist-not all dried up-which makes me suspect the bees were just recently killed by this bitter cold spell we had. It was especially sad to see the cluster and find the dead queen right in the middle of them. How could I have prevented this? We don't normally wrap hives here in KY and I think if we started doing that then the bees would have a false sense of warmth in the hives and consume all their winter stores. The only solution I could come up with would be to have some straw bales on stand-by and use them to block the wind and help insulate the hives only during the bitter cold snaps. Any thoughts on this? Also, as if the above is not enough, I saw a possum run out of the apiary into the woods. I think I found it's den so if need be I could try trapping it and relocating it. I have suspected some type of varmint messing with the hives by a tell tale "trail" in the leaves in front of the apiary and by entrance reducers on the ground.I know what skunks do to a hive, but what type of damage can a possum do? They are omnivorus-do they scratch at the entrance and get the bees to come out so they can gobble them up like the skunks do? I know this is a long post and I apologize, but I value you alls opinion. I had 18 hives last summer and am now down to 7. this is really discouraging." Thanks, Denise Hubler Luna Apiaries ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Follow-Up Postings: