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



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