Do You Have to Replace Your Bees Every Year?

As a new beekeeper, you put in plenty of hard work getting your first colony started. Now those bees are thriving and packing away honey. But a nagging thought hits you – will these buzzing insects stick around or do honey bees die annually? Do you need to replace your colony every single year? Or with diligent care can a hive’s lifespan be extended? Let’s dig into the factors that control bee colony longevity.

The Typical Lifespan of a Healthy Bee Colony

Honey bee colonies are not necessarily ephemeral creatures that only live and die within a single season like some insects do. With very attentive preventative care and proactive management from the beekeeper, a colony can survive and remain viable for multiple years.

On average, a successfully overwintered bee colony that is given proper food and protection tends to live and produce well for 2-3 seasons. Their longevity depends heavily on weather events, food availability throughout the year, parasite loads, queen health, and beekeeper techniques. It’s not a certainty that they will perish every winter.

However, losses are typical even in the best apiaries. Poor weather, heavy uncontrolled mite infestations, untreated contagious diseases, insufficient winter food stores, colony pest invasions, or other stresses often claim hives after just 1-2 years. Let’s look closer at the major threats to colony health and how to prolong their productive lives.

Why Do Bee Colonies Die Out? Major Threats Facing Hives:

Honey bees face a wide range of natural menaces from parasites, pathogens, predators, and environmental factors that can prematurely end a colony’s life. Left unmanaged, most hives would sadly perish in under a year. Here are the top causes of colony death:

Varroa Destructor Mites

This devastating external parasite spreads rapidly between bees in a hive and can jump to nearby colonies as well. Varroa mites feed on bee blood (hemolymph) and also act as dangerous disease vectors.

Mites reproduce inside capped brood cells, weakening developing pupae. Untreated mite infestations will overwhelm and kill a bee colony within several months in most cases. The mites’ effects are intensified by the viruses they transmit.

Starvation

Honey bees cannot survive cold winters or prolonged seasons of nectar dearth without adequate stored reserves of honey and beebread (pollen). These provide vital nutrition and the energy to power hive warming and activity.

If food stores run critically low, older worker bees will sacrifice themselves to produce heat and feed the queen, drones, and young larvae. But the colony still eventually succumbs if additional food is not located. Supplemental feeding can prevent critical shortages.

Poor Queens and Limited Brood Rearing

A failing elderly queen who produces few viable brood dooms a colony over time. Without a robust population of young adult bees emerging daily, the workforce shrinks and ages.

Healthy mated queens lay up to 1500 or more fertilized eggs per day in solid, compact brood patterns. This perpetual brood production pipeline is essential for sustaining hives long-term with adequate numbers. Spotty brood patterns reveal issues.

Wax Moth and Hive Beetle Destruction

These hive pests infiltrate and do major structural damage if left unchecked. Moth larvae create tangled webs and tunnel through comb to feed on wax, pollen, and debris. Beetles ruin stored honey. Their damage quickly renders frames unusable.

Robbing by other bees often ensues in beetle- or moth-weakened hives as news of the free food buffet spreads. Weak colonies cannot defend the incursion, further accelerating their decline. Traps and prevention IPM techniques help control both pests.

Disease Outbreaks

Highly contagious bacterial diseases like American and European Foulbrood can be extremely destructive if not caught and treated early. Dead pupae turn ropey brown or melted down to scale. Spores spread fast between hives via robbing and equipment use.

These diseases kill developing larvae, decimating the next generation of adult bees. Infected hives often fail within months. Some treatment with antibiotics is possible, but prevention and quarantine of contaminated hives is key.

How Beekeepers Can Promote Long-Lived Bee Colonies

Left completely unmanaged, varroa mites, disease, and other factors would destroy most hobbyist honey bee colonies after just one season. But diligent beekeepers have some very effective preventative measures to extend the productive lives of their hives:

Employ Integrated Pest Management (IPM)

IPM strategies like screened bottom boards, drone brood removal, powdered sugar dusting, and chemical mite treatments applied on a schedule can prevent mite populations from ever reaching levels that will overwhelm developing hives.

Ensure Adequate Winter Food Stores for the Cluster

Inspect honey and beebread levels in late summer and fall then feed hives heavy 2:1 sugar syrup if stores are light. This provides crucial fuel for the winter cluster’s heating activity and spring buildup before flowers bloom again.

Requeen Colonies Regularly with Young, Virile Queens

Introduce newly mated and productive queens every 1-2 years to maintain a strong brood cycle. Watch closely for signs of a failing, unproductive queen and replace her before the colony sustains damage.

Promote Strong Colony Hygiene and Sanitation

Keep the brood nest and honey supers as clean and dry as possible by preventing messy buildup. Ensure adequate hive ventilation year-round to limit moisture and condensation issues. Replace old dark comb periodically.

Isolate and Treat Diseased Hives Rapidly

Learn to spot symptoms of contagious diseases early through routine hive inspections. Employ quarantine techniques to prevent contamination of other colonies. Treat or euthanize infected hives promptly. Stop diseases before they spread.

Expect Some Annual Colony Losses and Plan for Replacements

Here is the reality – even skilled, attentive beekeepers who use IPM and best management practices will inevitably experience some level of overwintering losses each year.

It’s extremely unlikely you’ll get 100% winter survival rates year after year in your apiary. Most beekeepers realistically budget for 10-30% overwintering mortality annually. The lost colonies must be replaced each early spring with new packaged bee orders, nucleus colony (“nuc”) purchases, or captured swarms.

Having an annual replacement plan and budget is crucial for sustaining an apiary operation long-term. The new hive additions fill the empty spots left by colonies that sadly didn’t survive through the winter. Aiming for zero losses is unrealistic – be prepared with funds for replacements.

Growing Your Operation Through Splitting Strong Hives

Purchasing package bees or nucs through mail order each spring is one way to recover from winter losses, but splitting robust surviving hives allows beekeepers to make increase right at home. This propagation technique divides large colonies into multiple new hives.

To make a split, the beekeeper isolates the old queen into a new hive body with drawn comb or foundation, some food resources, and younger nurse bees. Approximately half the workers will move to this new home site along with the queen to care for her. Both halves can be built back up through natural expansion.

Capturing free swarms from feral hives is another way to add bees without buying them. Set out swarm traps furnished with pheromone lures to attract these land-seeking bees. Free bee resources are a bonus!

Take Stock of Your Hives Each Spring

As the days lengthen and warm after the coldest winter months, take a close individual look at all your hives. Identify which are healthy and buzzing with activity – these successfully survived another year! Celebrate these veterans.

Sadly, some will show no signs of life – a cold vacant hive with absolutely no audible worker hum means that colony has perished over the winter. These deadouts need replacement bees immediately.

Split any booming spring hives to generate new colonies on the cheap. Spring is also the perfect time to requeen surviving older hives with freshly mated young queens for maximum upcoming brood rearing. Choose the best genetics for your locale.

To summarize, European honey bee colonies absolutely can live, thrive, and produce for multiple seasons when the attentive beekeeper implements integrated pest management, disease prevention, and proactive care against starvation.

However, some degree of annual overwintering mortality is inevitable even in the best-kept apiaries. Responsible beekeepers plan for and budget these losses each year. They recover and expand by replacing deadouts with purchased bees, splitting robust hives, and trapping swarms. With such diligent care, colony life expectancy extends far beyond just a single season. Those bees can sweetly provide for many years to come!