Recover

Winter losses are sad and frustrating, and in some cases they can be devastating. It will be a while before we have the survey data for the 2025/26 winter, but anecdotal evidence from multiple sources suggests that some beekeepers have experienced losses well above the historic norm, and in some cases catastrophic losses with entire apiaries wiped out.

Losses will never go away, they are a part of natural selection. They can be caused by a huge number of things: queen issues, starvation, pests and disease, conditions the previous summer, and the actions of the beekeeper, to name a few.

They should rarely be caused by the winter weather outside the hive. The wet or the cold is often blamed where there’s no other apparent explanation. According to the Met Office, some parts of the country experienced a very wet winter, with some counties experiencing the highest amount of rain on record. But other parts were dryer than average, meaning it wasn’t the wettest winter for the UK. The winter was mild for all of us. Some parts of the British Isles are continuously lashed with rain and bees survive and indeed thrive. They’ve been adapting to our highly variable temperate maritime climate for more than 9,000 years.

So where else could the blame lie if losses are much higher than average?

A commonly reported find in this winter’s dead outs seems to be a queen in the middle of a very small cluster of worker bees and very few dead bees on the floor, suggesting there were too few bees left to survive as an over-wintered colony.

The hive still has plenty of stores, either in frames or supplementary and there’s no sign of starvation.

Speaking with some very experienced beekeepers, there are a couple of reasonable explanations that could have contributed to this phenomenon, and both occurred in the early warm, dry spring and summer many of us had last year.

The early, dry spring and summer meant some of the main flow from forage such as blackberry and clover started earlier than usual and it was over more quickly than usual. That meant an early and protracted brood break until a very strong ivy flow kicked in. This could have had an impact on the laying of winter bees in some colonies.

A second plausible explanation is that vespids thrived in the warm, dry conditions with some beekeepers reporting wasp attacks on a biblical scale in some apiaries. They went on and on into the very mild autumn and indeed into winter. As well as depleting the hive of summer bees and hindering foraging, what impact does this pressure have on the laying up of winter bees?  My own experience is of higher winter losses in apiaries that have suffered significant wasp pressures the summer before.

Varroa will also be blamed for winter losses when all other explanations fail, and in some cases could be the cause. It’s very important that beekeepers who have mite susceptible bees are keeping up with treatments, while those with varroa resistant bees must be keeping on top of monitoring and not get complacent after several years of low mite counts and survival. For those transitioning to varroa resistance, it’s critical to be very regular and consistent in your monitoring. Seeing uncapping is not enough - you need to see evidence of chewing out of infected pupae and you need to see a consistent low mite count across the season, and on an ongoing basis.

We’ll know about the scale of the losses and beekeeper’s thoughts on the reasons when the annual surveys are published later in the year.

For full disclosure, this author went into winter with 40 colonies across several sites on the Kent/Surrey/Sussex borders, and lost a total of 9, or 23%. One was a so-called "Mary Celeste” when the bees including the queen just vanish overnight, a few showed the aforementioned situation of a queen surrounded by a few bees, very few dead bees on the floor and a hive full of stores. Two losses were nucs, which is unusual for the author, but both were late season matings and the colonies struggled to get going despite heavy support.

At BIBBA, we have always tried to help beekeepers, their associations and breeding groups to breed locally adapted bees from their own stock. It’s simple to do. There’s no dark art. This year, it appears more important than ever. It can be as simple as donating a frame of eggs and young larvae to a beekeeper who has suffered heavy losses.

This season, take the plunge and raise bees from your existing survivor stock. You could raise more than you need. That’ll help you cover next winter’s losses, and you may have surplus to sell or donate to neighbour beekeepers who fared badly over winter.

We believe that the type of bees makes a difference. Our native bee, Apis mellifera mellifera, arrived on these isles after the last ice age some 9,000 years or more ago. They have had all that time to adapt to the climate and environment of the British Isles. Importation of bees from areas including the mediterranean and eastern Europe, which have very different climates and environments, have over the last 100 years or so heavily hybridised our stock.

But even these hybrid bees, with their mix of genetics, retain genes from our native bees. Over time they may become locally adapted and survivors may eventually succeed without the continual beekeeper manipulation and support required by non-native sub-species that are more suited to a commercial situation and rely on heavy feeding and treatment. These are the bees we need to build resilience for the future.

An action plan for rebounding from winter losses:

• Plan now for raising new colonies from your survivors. It’s simple to do, but you’ll need some nucs and spare frames. BIBBA has resources to help you raise new colonies simply. Choose a simple method and stick with it.
• Raise more than you need so that you’re going into next winter with nucs that would cover any losses next winter and potentially leave you with surplus that you could then sell locally.
• From a beekeeping perspective, was there anything you did differently for the survivors and those that didn’t make it through? Were colonies strong enough or should they have been combined? Did you leave them plenty of stores throughout the season? What can you do differently this season to ensure that your bees are as strong as possible going into next winter?
• Are your bees regularly having to be fed to get through winter, or do they survive with their own income? Bees that are frugal over winter are best suited to the UK’s winters, especially as it gets milder and the bees may be more active over winter.
• For anyone transitioning to varroa resistance, monitor mite numbers regularly and consistently and make sure you’re seeing both uncapping and chewing out. Uncapping alone isn’t enough. If your mite numbers start rising and continue rising, intervene. Don’t just hope for the best.
• For those who have varroa resistant bees, don’t let complacency creep in. Keep monitoring and observing and make sure colonies headed by new queens are as resistant as their mothers.
• Can you take extra precautions against wasps? Do you make sure the colonies are as strong as possible going into late July and August and narrow down the entrances to one in, one out? Wasps will take advantage of any weakness. Can you move any nucs away from an apiary that’s suffering wasp pressures to another site? If you are often blighted, have you considered using entrance adaptations?
• As an association, how are you helping members overcome winter losses? Is there a group within the association who might set up a breeding group to breed locally adapted bees and over-winter plenty of nucs for association members the following spring?

There will be many more questions we could ask, but over-wintering in a country where the beekeeping season lasts for no more than six months is a vitally important consideration for any beekeeper.

BIBBA has many resources that could help you rebound from winter losses and build resilience for future winters.