Kill pile outside entrance I can't figure: mostly drones! Please play Clue with me...
OK, so I had a bear kill three colonies in two nights due to a fence failure. I re-stacked the two remaining and removed them: one was mostly just pushed over, bottom off, and I reapproximated the boxes. The other was untouched. Moved them a week ago; they were fine 4 days ago. Today my host at the new yard calls me up saying there's piles of dead bees on the ground. There sure were, but 4 of 5 (at least) were drones! Both colonies had a pile, larger around the colony that had been knocked over. All had been dead a bit; they were faded and dessicated. Two other colonies 20' away had not a single casualty in front, tending to discourage a pesticide kill (as does the drone prevalence).
What's going on? My best guess so far is that I brought a lot of robbers and confused drones (there were two totalled colonies' survivors and a skillion robbers in the air and on the comb when I cleaned up) along in at least the one colony, and it took them a while to re-organize into polyethism structure and have enough undertakers? But why would the unharmed colony have such a kill too?
Bees, brews and fun
in Lyons, CO