Foul Brood or other problems in hive - with pictures

[ilivetobealive]

This hive was kept on some property in the mountains of North-East Utah this summer. Due to the extreme drought and lack of nectar flow the hive became very week (others in the same area had the same problems). I brought the hive back to my urban backyard where my other 4 hives have been doing great.

The hive has been doing well, numbers have increased slightly but to be safe I was going to OFF the queen and combine the hive with one of my stronger hives.

HOWEVER, I noticed a few strange things in the hive, such as uncapped brood and halfway uncapped brood...which I've read is a sign up Foul Brood. I've also noticed a lot of the cappings are sunken in. I did do a roping test on a few of the brood, but I couldn't get any of it to rope.

Here are some pictures, things aren't looking too good and I don't want to add this hive to another if there is a serious problem. I need someone who has more experience than me to tell me what's going on.

Thoughts?

[squarepeg]

not an expert, but starvation could be part of it.

[Vance G]

Possibly they cannot keep their little brood nest warm. I don't know if you have foulbrood. It is hard to tell without being there. If a toothpick twisted in the dead pupae doesn't string out, you don't. I would combine it now if the dead brood is not ropey.

[max2]

"Here are some pictures, things aren't looking too good and I don't want to add this hive to another if there is a serious problem. I need someone who has more experience than me to tell me what's going on."

It does not look like AFB to me but I would have it tested.

Make sure you are not using any equipment you are using on this hive on the rest. If you do an inspection, inspect the questionable one last. Sterilise all the equipment after. AFB is serious.

[sqkcrk]

Could be AFB. Could be a heavy varroa mite load causing Parasitic Mite Syndrome (PMS) known to look similar to AFB.

Did you see any cells w/ a brown vicous jelly which one cannot clean out of the cell w/ a small stick? Acts gluelike, ropes?

[Keth Comollo]

They look really hungry to me.

[beemandan]

And does it smell bad? They don't call if foulbrood for nothing.

[scdw43]

Do you have a queen? Is there any honey in the hive? The bees will shut down the queen without feed. They will uncap and pull pupas out of the cells and eat them when they have nothing else.

[KQ6AR]

I'm voting low food, & not enough nurse bees. I don't know how severe you're winters are, but if it was here I'd feed & give a frame of capped brood with bees to see if they build up.
USDA Zone 9b

[odfrank]

I vote PMS, Parasitic Mite Syndrome.

[Michael Palmer]

I'm with Frank and Squarepeg. The colony lost it's bees from mite/virus, and are now starving and unable to care for their brood.

[Michael Palmer]

Do you have a queen?

Look more closely at photo#2

[virginiawolf]

If 3 frames of healthy brood with the corresponding nurse bees and everything that had some pollen and capped honey on them were added to that colony I wonder if that would fix it.
I had a couple weak brood patterns earlier in the season. I think that the numbers were too low from a swarm in one case and another from starting the bees off with a new queen that took a while to start laying. Adding the brood and bees which increased the numbers fixed it. I don't think I had a mite syndrome just low numbers.

Your queen seen in photo 2 is laying a bunch so I wonder if they need a fresh round of bees and brood to take care of things. I'm just guessing. Adding to it might be an option. Hopefully other forum members with more experience than me will comment on my thinking. I got rid of the troubled brood with more bees no treatment.

Question.. If bees have parasytic mite syndrome are they done for or could you treat them and snap them out of it? It seems like they will need more bees.

[squarepeg]

or combine with another weak hive. i think the op was considering that.

[squarepeg]

but absolutely, frames with brood, (mostly capped); with pollen, honey, and nurse bees would be perfect in my opinion.

for me, being just a few weeks from first frost, and the goldenrod is half seed now, i would not want to rob those resources from antoher hive.

[WWW]

If no AFB is present in the combs then the best solution is to combine these bees into another colony, it is late in the season to start feeding a decimated hive like this. Splits are easy to make in the spring and drawn combs would give a new split a huge boost at that time, I absolutely agree with squarepeg, I would not want to rob valuable resources from another hive at this time.

[Mike Gillmore]

Enlarge the pics and look closely at the bees. It looks to me like some have shriveled wings. I would guess it's a colony in distress from mite overload and associated DWV. You could reduce down to a nuc, treat, feed and see what happens.

You may want to do a mite count on your other colonies and evaluate their status.

[ilivetobealive]

Great input. My best guess would be starvation. For those of you that read the full post the hive was placed where there was nearly no nectar flow this year, due to high drought. I've kept constant feed on the hive and it seems to be doing MUCH better, however, it was 36 degrees this morning and there is no way this hive will survive the winter.

If I combine with one of my other hives, it's not going to be fully drawn out. Is it too much to leave three deep frames on a hive where one of them isn't full? This would obviously make more dead air space for the bees to heat.

I could combine the bees then condense it back down to two deeps, but that's a whole lot of work and stress for another hive this late in the year.

I doubt it's AFB as any roping tests I've done come out negative...I feel confident at this point combining it...just not sure what course of action to take this late in the year.

[squarepeg]

so glad to hear the good report that this hive is doing better.

how many boxes are there and how many drawn frames?

[ilivetobealive]

My other hives all have two deeps, fully drawn.

This week hive has maybe 7 drawn in one deep but only 3 or so being used.