Long-Lived “Dead Colonies”
The June article “How Long Does a Dead Colony Live?” [by Michal L. Smith] could not have been more timely for me. This spring I had a number of virgin swarms from my colonies after doing spring splits (note to self, it really is worth getting in there and reducing queen cell numbers a week after splitting!!!!), and it is amazing how quickly those swarms move on to laying workers if their virgins fail their mating flights. Between those and the one split that developed laying workers faster than usual, getting there before I realized it had failed to requeen, I am now having the opportunity to personally witness how long it takes a dead hive to die. Had it not been for the article, I guarantee I would have been scratching my head and thinking, “What the heck!!!????”
I made all my splits by the end of the first week in May, yet all of my “dead hives” still have bees flying (in late July). And let me tell you, they are determined to die slowly. I tried shaking the bees out of the one full-sized hive hundreds of yards from where they were, but left the box on the stand thinking I would put a queenright colony there. They all went home so quickly I was afraid to try, thinking they might just do in the queen in the new colony. Those bees are still there, in surprising numbers, I might add, despite the skunk who has taken to visiting them for tasty bee snacks in the night.
I tried shaking one of the failed virgin swarms out of their box and, given the first experience, took their box away. They all piled up where the box had been for a day and a half, and then much to my surprise, moved en masse to one of my swarm traps about 200 feet away. I was all excited to have caught a swarm until I walked around the corner and saw that all the failed virgin swarm bees had simultaneously disappeared. The bees coordinating such a move without a queen seemed so unlikely to me that I left them there for 10 days and then pulled the box down and confirmed the only brood was scattered drone brood, and no queen was present that I could find (and I am not too bad at finding queens.) Then, for lack of a better idea (other than euthanizing them), I put the trap back up and have watched the number of bees slowly dwindle, but they aren’t gone yet!
I never would have expected them to hang in there so long, but thanks to the article, I know my bees are not some sort of zombie hive refusing to be dead.
Becky Green
Becky’s Birds and Bees
Dexter, MI
Eugene Responds
Wow, that is a long-lived “dead colony” — sorry to hear about your troubles, but it’s nice to know Michael’s article helped you understand.
Wyatt Mangum wrote about laying workers in our November 2021 issue (“Laying Workers in the Hive: Which Bees are They? And What to Do About Them?”). Jamie Ellis has also addressed the issue several times in The Classroom, including in April 2025, where he talks about his tried-and-true method of dropping a queenright nuc right into the laying worker colony, where they will quickly restore order …
