DEAD Bees

[jesuslives31548]

Having a small break from the rain went to check a Bee yard or two. I found two hives 40 feet apart in one yard with sevral thousand dead bees. It looked like you took a three pound package of dead bees and dumped them in front of the hive. I would say 1/4 where still in the hive. Brood and honey present. No signs of gnawned up wax like robbing. Hives are 20+ miles from any agriculture. I robbed these bees 6 days ago, heavy rain started and has not stopped.
Question is:
Robbing frenzy after I left?
Pesticides?
Rapied type of Disease? No clue what could kill that fast and that many at one time. No luck contacting bee Inspector with long weekend. Any ideas?
There are 13 other hives in this yard not effected by whatever happend. The two hives with the dead bees where very strong, 4 Medium boxes of brood in 8 frames configuration on each with plenty of honey.

[gmcharlie]

wow, sounds odd .. might grab a few bees and freeze them for reviw later...... other than that got me????? you say you robbed them?? how so???

Normaly rbbing betwen strong hives creates minamal damage....

[alpha6]

Sounds pretty much like a Pesticide kill. Are they spraying for weeds along the roads in your areas?

I would go to the other hives and shake a few frames of nurse bees from them into a box and then dump them in each of the hives. If not you are going to lose your brood in the two affected hives. It won't hurt the strong hives to pull the bees.

[tecumseh]

jesus3l548 writes:
Rapied type of Disease? No clue what could kill that fast and that many at one time. No luck contacting bee Inspector with long weekend. Any ideas?
There are 13 other hives in this yard not effected by whatever happend. The two hives with the dead bees where very strong, 4 Medium boxes of brood in 8 frames configuration on each with plenty of honey.

tecumseh:
with 13 uneffected hives this would king of rule out pesticide poisoning. kind of sounds a bit like a paralysis type virus plus maybe nosema.... bees in the box show lack of agility and any manipulation seems to add to the body count at the front door. the real down side is the virus stuff is hard to id by using anything besides sophisticated lab equipment and proper handling of samples.

on occasion treating for nosema helps here. if purely a virus the best thing to do (according to the book) is to requeen with uneffected stock.

just a simple question... of the two affected hive in this yard were they anywhere approximate to each other?

[Big John]

http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/pest&disease/pppdIndex.html

You might find something on here.

[bleta12]

It looks like poisoning.

Gilman

[EvaST-B]

I had that happen last year with one (the middle) of my four hives. Among the dead at the hive entrance, I found a queen - and there was a queen in the hive box too - I thought at the time that maybe they had swarmed (they were strong too) and tried to return for some reason???

[alpha6]

jesus3l548 writes:

tecumseh:
with 13 uneffected hives this would king of rule out pesticide poisoning.

No it sounds exactly like pesticide poisoning. All hives do not forage in the same area. If those two hives did and the others didn't then it would in fact only affect those and not the others. Nosema does not kill like that. You would see a dwindling of the hives not a massive kill. :rolleyes:

[jesuslives31548]

Spraying along highway. Actually DOT was spraying the sides of the road when I came oout of the wood. About miles bee flight distance. I checked into the spray. 24D, Its a herbicide, but the flowers alnog the road where in full bloom. I do have two jars full of the dead bees in my freezer if I can find a lab to inspect them. Other then that, There are no fields in the area, for miles. The two hive where 40-60 feet apart. As mentioned the day I robbed them they where very strong. I do not use any chemicals or even smoke due to these are all cut comb hives. I would love more then anything to find traces in the dead bees of the chemical the DOT sprayed, But just really hard to say. Thanks for the input. Will let you know when I get som info back on the bees from a lab.

[Tom G. Laury]

Never heard of 24D killing bees but I suppose it's possible.

Here in Spray City you can register with the county and be notified of applications within a fair radius of the site. Never heard of any herbicide killing bees per se. There are also poisonous nectars, Yellow Jasamine? Here we have California buckeye, Western Azalea, Death Camas, all toxic to bees.
And I mean toxic to whole colonies, not just a few adults. 100% loss. :eek:

[Tom G. Laury]

31548: To have valid samples they must be collected by disinterested party, i.e., an ag analysis lab nearby who can collect store and analyze impartially. You gotta gather that stuff RIGHT AWAY. But the State crews are usually prety professional.

[jesuslives31548]

The swamp these bees are located in have been in the same location for years. Toxic nectar in this area???? Not sure. Hope to figure it out soon.

[Tom G. Laury]

Sorry about the bees and I'm just guessing based on my exposure to spray type stuff. Really just guessing. :)

[Tom G. Laury]

Also of course the most obvious answer is you incited robbing when the honey was pulled, leading to thousands of deaths. :cool:

[jesuslives31548]

During a mass robbing would drones be dead as well? But with no comb damade, plenty of stored honey...... Maybe they dranks some jim jones kool aid. On a serious note, the bess where confined to the boxes for 96 plus hours during 19 inches of rain from the past tropical storm last week. I guess it was possilbe for some disease to have had time to spread, maybe?