I was checking my hives last week, first really warm day this year and everyone was flying. I found a pile of bees outside one of my wintering nucs. About the size of a child's fist, the bees were moving their wings but none could fly. When they stopped buzzing, there was what appeared to be a white fungus on their wings(much like ick on tropical fish fins). As I looked around there were more buzzing around the yard not able to fly (if I stop here, do you think I can get a grant to study it?)
Well, I picked several up and found the "fungus" was hard and tasted like sugar. The feeder bottle must have dripped on the cluster and dried on their wings. They were working on each other cleaning off the sugar, but it didn't look like they would be done by dark.
I gave them a ramp so they could get back into the hive and an hour or so later they had gone back inside. The next day there were very few walking home from their "flight" and today there were none....CURED!!!....Grant, Denied!!!
Topic: New Bee Ailment!??...NOT! (Read 1040 times)