Workers being evicted?!

[heus]

Did a search but couldn't find anything. Yesterday I split one of my hives, putting the queen in a nuc. Anyways, at the original (now queenless) hive there are several workerbees being carrried out alive and dropped in front of the hive. All of these seem to be young bees. There are dozens crawling around on the ground in front of the hive. I checked several of their wings and no hint of DWV. All of these bees are trying to get off the ground but cant seem to fly. Are newly-emerged bees unable to fly? Maybe these new bees are being blamed for the loss of their queen??

[heus]

anyone?

[Rick 1456]

I see this from time to time. I have often thought they were the bees that wanted to be "Dentists) (Rudolph circa 1970?) Sorry, couldn't resist. Doubt they are being blamed for anything. Most likely something is wrong with them as in DWV. I know you stated non observed, but who knows. One thing I have thought/wondered, is if the laying worker police are doing their job. With the split you spoke of, maybe. Speculation on my part. Most info I have read suggests there are bees that make attempts at becoming Lw but the house bees put and end to it. Do not have an explanation about lack of flight ability unless the bees were mauled in the dragging out process. Perhaps a more experienced beek will weigh in.

[Aerindel]

I have a similar issue with two of my hives. These where started from packages about a month and a half ago. I will see three or four bees hauling on another perfectly normal looking bee and dragging it out of the hive. The problem bee isn't fighting back but just keeps trying to crawl back into the hive. I've broken up a few of these wrestling matches and had the problem bee either fly away or simply crawl back into the hive unmolested.

I've heard that bees who eat fermented pollen will be ejected like this but thats all I have to go on. These are all confirmed queenright hives.

[heus]

Do you think these could be robber bees that are being "roughed-up" and carried out of the hive? I do have a feral hive 50 yards from my two hives.

[Rick 1456]

Could be. Most of the robbers I've seen around my hives that get caught, usually get away and fly off.

[psfred]

If the bees getting turfed out are foragers exposed to pesticides, this is normal. Happened to my hive last year, probably guttation droplets from the very late corn planted across the road.

Sick bees get removed from the hive, and bees who have ingested pesticides at high enough levels to stagger around and be unable to fly will get tossed out.

Peter

[heus]

Peter did it negatively impact your hive? The farmers around here have been spraying anhydrous ammonia this past week. I did notice that alot of the bees dont have use of their back legs.

[psfred]

Not that I know of, it was going great until late summer.

Sadly, I learned it's necessary to feed new hives here during the summer dearth (which can run from June to October some years, duh!) and eventually lost the hive.

Your framers are NOT spraying anhydrous, it is a gas (liquified, but a gas) and is always applied by underground "knives). If it's being sprayed, it's most likely not fertilizer!

Paralyzed legs would make me think insecticide. However, I saw a bee the other day with her back legs glued to her abdomen with white goo of some sort, must have been on a milkweed plant.

Peter

[heus]

Yeah I meant injected not sprayed.
You mentioned milkweed. It is blooming like crazy right now and the bees on it seem to get stuck to it. This didnt start happening until I opened the hive 2 days ago to remove the queen and some frames of brood, honey, and pollen. The first frame that I took out I set next to the hive as normal. It was filled with uncapped honey. Maybe that set off robbing? One of the bee "fights" that I saw going on had one worker bee chewing on the leg of another bee that was trying to get away.

[Joseph Clemens]

Could possibly be tracheal mites, they reduce a bees ability to assimilate oxygen, so that they are weakened and become unable to fly.

[Aerindel]

Someone was spraying herbicide about a mile from my place a few days ago.

But these bees are fully able to fly. Its possible they could be robbers but they just seem to site there and passively take the abuse and often once they get loose the walk in the hive without the other bees giving them any grief.

[heus]

Could possibly be tracheal mites, they reduce a bees ability to assimilate oxygen, so that they are weakened and become unable to fly.

Do bees typically remove workers that have tracheal mites? Can I treat for them with honey supers on?

[heus]

I have went back and watched several videos on YouTube and I believe this is a robbing scenario. The videos I watched definitely show that guard bees bite the heck out of robber bees, injuring their wings, legs, etc. I think this could be the reason for all of the disabled bees infront of the hive. This started suddenly after I opened the hive 2 days ago and left the first frame of honey up against the hive.

[Joseph Clemens]

I understand that bees infected with tracheal mites will voluntarily go on a funeral march, their own.

On your other note; every day there are a few dead bees in front of most hives (I know that they were the "wanna be" robbers).

[heus]

I am now 95% convinced it is robbing. I asked this in another thread but can I use regular window screen instead of #8 to make a simple robber screen?