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Author Topic: Dead larvae and pupae.  (Read 1626 times)

Offline Georgia Boy

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Dead larvae and pupae.
« on: May 13, 2013, 10:19:42 pm »
Got three nucs on Saturday. They were moved 100 miles and took about 1 hour and 45 minutes.

My strongest nuc spent yesterday and today removing dead larvae and pupae. Some of the pupae are definitely drone but the rest seem to be workers. What causes larvae and pupae to die but not the bees? I have been watching the bees and haven't noticed any varroa on them so I don't know. Any ideas would be great.

Is it possible for the larvae and pupae overheat or suffer from carbon dioxide from lack of air circulation? I taped the entrance reducer across the entrance but pulled back the bottom board in my sbb about 1 to 2 inches. There may not have been enough air circulation in the hive.

This is an offshoot from a earlier post. 10framer thought it might be from a chill we had on Saturday night but don't remember it being that chilly and this hive has a lot more bees than the other two. The other two aren't exhibiting the same behaviour.




 
 
Thanks David
« Last Edit: May 13, 2013, 10:32:23 pm by Georgia Boy »
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Offline don2

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Re: Dead larvae and pupae.
« Reply #1 on: May 13, 2013, 10:37:19 pm »
Make sure they have  feed. if they get low on stores they will open cells and remove larvae. :) d2

Offline duryeafarms

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Re: Re: Dead larvae and pupae.
« Reply #2 on: May 13, 2013, 11:32:38 pm »
That's amazing. Sealed brood first? Better yet, sealed drones?

Offline BlueBee

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Re: Dead larvae and pupae.
« Reply #3 on: May 14, 2013, 01:24:42 am »
Looks like some deformed wings to me in the photos, but I can’t tell for sure.  Quite possibly varroa.  Next time you’re in the hive, uncap some drone cells, pull the larvae and look for mites.   That’s where they’ll be this time of year.  We dipped below freezing last night, no pupae being pulled here.  I would expect a lack of air (or too much CO2) would do the workers in before the pupae since the workers would have a higher metabolism rate.  I would carefully check for varroa.
 

 

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