The worst year so far? 2024

Late 2024 and we continue to see many colony deaths. Again, we’re adding to previous articles on this site with titles of Tough Year for the bees 2022 and 2023.

Large sellers and backyard beekeepers are still reporting slow growth and while the weather conditions don’t seem bad at all we’re still seeing many colony deaths and possibly the worst year so far for losses. Most deaths seem to be Tetragonula hockingsi which aren’t native to the Brisbane area though many Tetragonula carbonaria have declined as well which seems even more odd. Maybe this just happens every now and then but it definitely starts to raise concerns to the causes, if it’s simply poor weather and lack of resources for the bees or is something else going on like disease etc.

It seems like the bee numbers dwindle and the colony dies out slowly. Sometimes there is still plenty of resources like honey and pollen in the hive.

  • Is it a lack of resources available like nectar and pollen?
  • Is it a decline in bee numbers so brood and colony maintenance is neglected?
  • Is it a failure to re-queen?
  • Mystery disease?
  • Are multiple managed hives in groups more likely to decline than single isolated colonies?

A major issue at the moment is we don’t know if the tough times are over yet.

Pictured below is a huge Th brood. The owner was concerned that the hive was very heavy and the bees may be building themselves out with too many resources causing a decline in brood space. I opened it to find this huge brood so they seemed to have plenty of room. This hive had all the indications that it was healthy and strong and would be a perfect opportunity to split the colony. The problem is with all the recent deaths I’ll take the cautious approach and put it back together and not split.

My general advice for the moment is not to split and keep your colony strong.

It’s not a race. There’s no point splitting if one colony dies. It’s better to keep the colony strong for the moment and if we see conditions pick up in the next few months then it might be safer to split. Even if you don’t split at all and wait another year that wouldn’t be so bad.


Below: A failing Tc colony with about 10 bees left. This colony still had pollen and honey stores. It looks like it failed to requeen, ran out of bees for maintenance or could there be some kind of bacteria or brood disease? Looks like pests have appeared after the colony has weakened.

Below: A different failing colony with a few bees still left. The same details as above. There is a small old dead brood inside of the involucrum, some pollen and honey stores. Clean with no pests. These colonies were very active six months previous. I wouldn’t connect these up to a strong colony to try “save” it. The colony is already dead so you’re not saving it and could possibly be risking the mother colony, if this is a bacteria issue.


Article cover photo is the fairy door hive. The Tc colony was established in 2021. Last update was February this year and it was going well. Looks like it slowly died out with no brood and pests came later. It has a bit of everything, small hive beetle, native hive beetle etc. Nothing you can do at this stage, just clean it out, place in the sun for a while and start again.


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