Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => DISEASE & PEST CONTROL => Topic started by: JP on April 16, 2006, 05:01:17 pm
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Hey,
it's me JP, the hive I thought was doing fine is not. Just checked it and a lot of the comb is empty, no eggs, pollen, brood or honey, empty. This is comb that had ben previously occupied with something, perhaps honey. Some of the combs have pollen a little honey, and some capped brood cells but some brood cells are open with fully formed pupae that look dead. I'm assuming they are dead cause they're not moving at all. Some of the pupae's heads are half eaten or pieces are missing. Perhaps other bees tried pulling them out and were unsuccessful. I did find larvae and eggs and I did find a queen albeit she looked thin. Also, their numbers are down from what they should be. No queen cells. Coming out of winter I noticed they had consumed all of their honey stores so I had to feed them. Also noticed some dead pupae and pieces of pupae on bottom board. Any clues and or remedies? Thnx.
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>but some brood cells are open with fully formed pupae that look dead. I'm assuming they are dead cause they're not moving at all. Some of the pupae's heads are half eaten or pieces are missing.
If they look like pupae and don't look like pieces of chalk, then I'd say you have some other problem. Are they white and healthy looking (like the white part of cooked shrimp) or are them off color or hard and chalky or black?
> Perhaps other bees tried pulling them out and were unsuccessful. I did find larvae and eggs and I did find a queen albeit she looked thin. Also, their numbers are down from what they should be. No queen cells. Coming out of winter I noticed they had consumed all of their honey stores so I had to feed them. Also noticed some dead pupae and pieces of pupae on bottom board. Any clues and or remedies?
They could be chewing out Varroa. They could be chewing out chilled brood. Look at pictures of chalk brood and other diseases and see if anything rings a bell.
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Michael,
I'm perplexed. Pupae look normal not like typical chalkbrood from what I 've gathered viewing chalkbrood pictures. Bees have been trying to clean house as there are some dead pupae on bottom board. What's weird is that there are uncapped cells with perfectly normal looking pupae but there are some cells with pupae with their heads messed up a bit. The hive wintered ok but I had to feed them as they consumed all of their winter stores. They have not made in increase that I can notice and actually look like this hives numbers are down a bit. I decided to feed them some honey today to see if perhaps they are in need of some extra feed and they ate it up. Any othe ideas on what's going on?
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oh, I was thinking that perhaps this is looking like chilled brood. How does this ocurr?
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In looking at descriptions of chilled brood it mentions this can happen when bees are exposed to pesticides and some of the adult bees die off leaving a lack of nurse bees to feed and take care of the brood. After Katrina I did have a small number die, perhaps a couple of hundred or so. This would have been in September, from mosquito spray. Could it be possible that this colony is being affected now from what transpired in September?
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JP, you inspected every frame and seen nothing like a queen cell ha? where you are at (Louisiana) your hive's should be booming unless they have gotten into poison or the hive swarmed, with a lot that you said with no eggs of larva and little honey plus a small queen because she might not have started laying yet, tells me they have swarmed, this would also explain the dead pupa probably from being chilled with not enough bee's to keep warm at nights, with reading your post that's what it sounds like to me...
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twt,
there are eggs and larvae in about 4 frames. No queen cells anywhere.
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Sounds like typical hygenic behavior. There is probably a reason they are removing the brood. It doesn't sound like any brood diseases.
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Michael, is there anything you might recommend me doing at this time on this hive? Or should I wait and see.
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"I decided to feed them some honey today to see if perhaps they are in need of some extra feed and they ate it up."
Feeding is a good option. But I would feed with 1:1 sugar:water. Honey is not the best food.
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>Honey is not the best food.
The bees seem to disagree.
>Michael, is there anything you might recommend me doing at this time on this hive? Or should I wait and see.
I'd be curious to do a powdered sugar roll and maybe a sticky board to see if there are a lot of varroa.
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I have seen first hand how bees love to eat honey placed on the bottom board. I did a removal about a month ago. The hive was left for a week and a half at the customer's vacant house. Someone vandalized the hive but didn't kill it. In my opinion feeding them honey saved them. They went through a transformation I will never forget, from weak to strong in two feedings.
Now about the varroa issue. Ok, I'm seeing ya'll have a point, I need to investigate the possibility that it was varroa that hurt this hive. I ordered some apiguard today to treat this hive. I don't see me getting any honey from them this year anyway. I will treat the other hive that I know has some varroa after the honey flow. Thnx for the feedback.
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>Now about the varroa issue. Ok, I'm seeing ya'll have a point, I need to investigate the possibility that it was varroa that hurt this hive. I ordered some apiguard today to treat this hive.
How will apigaurd help you investigate the possiblilty that it's Varroa? You need to assess what the problem is. Not treat for a problem you MIGHT have.
> I don't see me getting any honey from them this year anyway. I will treat the other hive that I know has some varroa after the honey flow.
Have you assessed that hive? Treating when it's not needed just helps the mites build resistance to the treatments, wastes your money, stresses the bees and taints your honey for no reason.
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Michael, I have assessed the hive that has varroa. I have removed some drone brood. Saw varroa on the drones. Have had bees in the grass in front of this hive periodaclly, but the hive is robust and very busy, I want to wait and treat this hive after the flow. The hive in question that we have been discussing if it does turn out that varroa is the problem I will treat with Apiguard now. I have been meaning to get some Apiguard for the other hive anyway. I can appreciate where you are coming from by pointing out that I should know first before I treat.