Re: Cluster Breakdown

> The man who keeps bees at my small farm found that two seemingly strong
> hives had suddenly died in early spring.  They were both full of honey
> with dead bees between the frames of the top super, so it wasn't
> starvation

There's always the possibility the bees stored Pencap-M as pollen it looks
like pollen. Are there any likely large farms nearby raising corn? [maize]

> and the hives were adequately insulated and sealed with only
> small openings for the bees to get out.

Conjecturing in your case [NW Indiana Winter] adequate ventilation is more
im****tant than insulation.

> His explanation:weather changed drastically with zero and
> single-digit temperatures for nearly two weeks.

My take on this is the bees during the warm weather would have increased
their use of stores to the subsequent effect of producing extra humidity
in
the brood chamber. When cold weather returned it's not that they couldn't
have re-formed their cluster but condensation of water va**** to the point
of
dripping would be deadly in cold weather.

In Clayton L. Farrar's chapter XIII "The Overwintering of Productive
Colonies" in a twentieth century edition of that celebrated tome "The Hive
and the Honey Bee" by L. L. Langstroth 1862, he repeatedly alludes to his
research [In Madison Wisconsin] regarding the ability of honeybees to
survive hard winters in minimal shelters provided they had adequate stores
of honey and pollen.

-- 

Darker reasons for failure:

If nothing had changed in the beekeeper's methods of overwintering up to
this point it might be time to check NW Indiana winter warm period
temperature records for any discernible upward trend. if last winter's
warm
period was higher than previous years in January by two or three degrees
it
might be enough to cause an excess of condensation in overly insulated
hives. The solution would be to increase ventilation for a less temperate
climate.

There are thousands of new chemical compounds brought into the environment
every year. They are created to provide a specific task however effects
outside their designed function are not required research for FDA
approval.

There is also the rapid globalizing of organisms both natural and created.
The effects of these changes will not be known for a long time, if ever.
In
our commerce driven world there is always effect but never cause.

CK