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Little Worried - Need some opinions.

10K views 38 replies 20 participants last post by  GLOCK 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi,
It has been very warm for over a month in Central California. Today (I am only home in daylight on weekends), I saw 3 of 4 of my hives bringing in pollen and a lot of flying. On the fourth, little to no activity.
It is 65 degrees, sunny, no wind, so I thought I would open up and see what is going on. Found the queen and about 1000 bees, but not a lot of action. I opened the hive next door to compare and it is rocking and rolling.
The weak hive is looking pretty sparse. I saw no Larvae or eggs and the capped brood looks old, broken etc. I am posting pictures below. The queens are not related. The failing(?) hive is from a queen I got from rweaver, and has up to now been my strongest hive.
Any ideas on what is going on? Pictures are below.

Weak hive:
Bee Honeycomb Honeybee Beehive Insect

Bee Honeybee Insect Beehive Honeycomb

Honeycomb Bee Honeybee Insect Beehive


Hive Next Door:
Bee Honeybee Beehive Insect Honeycomb
 

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#9 ·
Mite poop? I thought I had it covered. I have an Oxalic Acid vaporizer, and in October, I vaporized them three times - a week apart, hoping to have them set for winter.
Three times in a month? I never got around to actually using the vaporizer I bought, used other treatments instead last season, but isn't this excessive? Unless weaker doses were given, the OA might have burned a part of the colony, and the white flecks might be remaining OA crystals?
 
#6 ·
yeah, i saw her there. by failure i mean she's no longer laying well. no eggs and a spotty pattern suggest this. can you tell if it's the same queen? could the original queen have been superceded? could that be a unmated virgin? it may be that the population is so dwindled it will be hard for it to get momentum even with a new queen.
 
#7 ·
Yep - I also did three treatments of oav in october, but when I checked the mite drop after the last treatment, the count was too high on some hives.
So I did a fourth oav in mid november. Hope it worked.
Charlie
 
#11 ·
"Queen fecundity is a critical issue for the health of honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies, as she is the only reproductive female in the colony and responsible for the constant renewal of the worker bee population. Any factor affecting the queen’s fecundity will stagnate colony development, increasing its susceptibility to opportunistic pathogens. We discovered a pathology affecting the ovaries, characterized by a yellow discoloration concentrated in the apex of the ovaries resulting from degenerative lesions in the follicles. In extreme cases, marked by intense discoloration, the majority of the ovarioles were affected and these cases were universally associated with egg-laying deficiencies in the queens. Microscopic examination of the degenerated follicles showed extensive paracrystal lattices of 30 nm icosahedral viral particles. A cDNA library from degenerated ovaries contained a high frequency of deformed wing virus (DWV) and Varroa destructor virus 1(VDV-1) sequences, two common and closely related honeybee Iflaviruses."

from: http://www.plosone.org/article/fetc....1371/journal.pone.0016217&representation=PDF

Yep, varroa not queen failure.
the viruses vectored by the mites can cause the queen to fail. but you're right, mites are likely the primary cause.
 
#10 ·
The brood pattern is typical varroa damage. Note the perforated cappings with just a few brood cells in an arc. This is what happens when a colony has been hit heavily by varroa. The best course is either to add a frame of eggs and brood from another colony or else combine them.
 
#14 ·
OK... So.... Here's the plan (let me know if it is a dumb one).
I have a hive in one deep that is pretty full of bees.
1. I took a couple frames of brood out and shook the bees off (I wasn't able to find the queen, and the light is failing).
2. I put an excluder on top of the deep and another deep on top of that.
3. Put the brood frames in the top deep and surrounded them with empty comb frames (just to fill space).
4. Covered it up.
5. Hoping to be able to go out tomorrow once the temperature is over 60 degrees and get a frame of brood and nurse bees to strengthen the hive in question.

Only thing I am worried about is that it will get down to 36 degrees tonight. Think enough bees will move up to cover and care for the brood frames?
 
#15 ·
If you want to save the weak hive you need to add brood - emerging and capped with adhering bees (at least two frames worth) - from your other colonies ASAP. Be careful as you do the transfer not to move the queen from one of your other hives. I concur that the root problem was Varroa. Remember OA is not approved as a miticide in the US and your mileage with it (the effectiveness of it) may vary from the words of those who hope to make a profit on it.

Your plan sounds reasonable. With a temp at 36 I would expect brood/larvae to be covered with nurse bees. Perhaps others who have investigated this type of scenario before can answer at what temperature bees will abandon brood in order to cluster - I suspect it is at colder temperatures than 36F.
 
#16 ·
" If the bees are clustering, they probably aren't cleaning up the hive from OA crystals, which can accumulate and probably kill a lot of the bees. As for the poor brood patterns, I can only imagine what the odds of survival are for a larva in a cell filled with OA crystals."

This seems like speculation on top of speculation on top of speculation. Anything to substantiate this statement?

'
Remember OA is not approved as a miticide in the US and your mileage with it (the effectiveness of it) may vary from the words of those who hope to make a profit on it."

Lots of people who don't make a profit from OA report good results.

I am not saying OA is a miracle treatment, but both of these quotes seem biased to me.
 
#27 · (Edited)
I'd rather call it leads for discussions or hypothesis, but indeed, none of that must be assumed to be true.

However, OA is an effective treatment, and I don't understand those who doubt it. All the studies I see state 95-96% efficacy. I can't seem to put any attachments, but if you look through these forums, someone shared a chart that showed OA dosage and mite & bee mortality. OA kills a lot of mites. It also kills bees. Recommended dosage kills almost all mites (95%), and less bees (25%). Double dosage kills slightly more mites (100% or 99.99%, hard to say) and a lot more bees (70%). OA might not be authorized in the states, but it is in Canada (or at least I assume so, since the government's telling us to use it), and the papers state to use a SINGLE (emphasis is mine) application in the fall or winter months when the hive is broodless, at 1g per deep (for vaporization). The table in question was for drippling, I believe, but OA is OA, however it is distributed in the hive. If you use three treatments in the same months, you are at best killing off a quarter of your hive three times in a row, killing 58% of the hive, assuming all of the OA crystals are cleaned up within less than a week. At worst, it's a triple dose, which is pretty much guaranteed to give 100% mortality.

I want to stress, though, that I'm not putting aside the varroa hypothesis. But I think that we can all agree that hive failures are often multifactorial.

After all, if OA could be effective and safe during brood period, I'm sure that those selling it would have made sure to mention it. Since they don't, and given the numbers from the study I'm looking at, I think it safe to assume that the kind of treatment the original poster tried is either ineffective or harmful, most probably both.
 
#18 ·
36, if you have enough bees in the strong colony they should cover that brood you put above the excluder. (i probably would have just waited until tomorrow and tried to find the frame with the queen in the strong hive and just made sure i didn't transfer that one).

the oa vapor crystalizes inside the hive after you apply it.

i'm concerned that you don't have any drones there yet. if you don't have even capped drone cells in your other hives, you may just want to let this one go and use the drawn comb for a split a little later in the season.
 
#20 ·
I killed a hive outright in 2009, by applying a double dose of OAV (4 grams in a single). Hive died in 24 hours.

I am pretty sure I killed a couple of hives this November by using OA dribble after OAV in September. Evidence here is more problematic, but decline was abrupt following the OA (mister bottle squeeze along frames breaks).

I am going back to late summer Menthol pads -- the OAV seems to have very poor effective-to-lethal ratio in the fall.

I think OAV is being way, way oversold by the marketeers of equipment, or the real dangers to queen/colonies are being underestimated.

I would move the queen into a small nuc and see if you can keep her going.

I wonder about EFB, but usually you see waxy larvae casts and a more random shot pattern to the brood. It will cause sudden die-offs.
 
#21 ·
understood 36. adding a frame with eggs will tell you whether or not that queen is still good. if they start making queen cells it means she is no longer viable. if that's the case, you will need drones to get the new queen mated. if it was mites, and if this colony was less resistant than the others, it may not be a good one to raise queens from. i don't blame you for trying, it will be good experience.
 
#23 ·
Tristan - I feel your pain - One of my four hives here in Marin looked exactly like yours a week or so ago while the other three are doing very well. I took one frame from a strong hive that had capped brood and lots of workers and moved it and the bees from the weak hive into a nuc a week ago. Checked on it today and it wasn't doing well - I couldn't find the queen and no signs of new eggs or larvae. I did see a few drones, so presumably it's possible to make a new queen now.

I hope you can save it but suspect it may be tough. Certainly be careful not to deplete your strong hives too much to try to save it. After all, we still may get a winter here and it's better to get thru it with strong hives that you can split in the spring than to lose another one trying to save this one.

I treated my strong hives with OA today. I use a simple homemade copper pipe with a see-thru box that goes on top. Kind of funny to see bees that get "frosted" with the OA as it crystalizes on them. Doesn't seem to bother them much.

Let us know if you're able to save the hive. If not, at least you have drawn comb and stores for a spring split.
 
#29 ·
>What is a sugar roll,
Do a search on powder sugar roll - basically you take 1/2 cup of bees (about 300) put them in a jar with powder sugar roll the jar several times, separate bees and sugar then count the mites in the sugar.

>and what essential oils do I feed them
essential oils can make your bees more vulnerable to disease, some put it in syrup

In the pictures do I see dead larva in some cells that have not been capped yet? It's hard to tell but that what it looks like to me.

Do you have picture of the brood from your other hives?

Wash your tools and gloves (if it is EFB it is very contagious)
If your hive fails don't let it get robbed out.
 
#34 ·
If you really want to try to save this weak hive, I would move the remaining bees to a nuc box and take a frame of brood with nurse bees from a strong hive and add that to the weak hive, along with other frames with brood from the existing hive. I would also offer them a 1/2 pollen patty and some syrup.

The smaller living quarters will make it easier for them to keep warm. The brood will give the bees a shot in the arm and a reason to live. The pollen patty and syrup will make it easier for the weak population to feed the brood. If the queen is failing, you may see evidence of that if the bees begin to make a supercedure or emergency queen cell(s).

While you are in there and moving everything to the nuc, look for frass at the bottom of the cells and signs of European Foulbrood.
 
#37 ·
Michael, you are probably right in your analysis. I agree 100% that resources should not be stolen from other apparently thriving colonies at this time of the year in an attempt to save a dink. But new small scale beekeepers, even some that have been at it a while, have a hard time letting go and cutting their losses. It goes against the grain to admit defeat.

Robbing resources from other colonies should be eliminated from consideration. But perhaps moving the colony into a nuc will satisfy the need to do something, but not at the expense of the other colonies.
 
#38 ·
You showed six frame pictures, and from what I see on those six frames, that hive is almost starving Dead. The only stores I see is some traces of capped honey here and there at the edges. You adding two frames of brood above an excluder, frames that you had shaken off all the bees. This hive doesn't have enough bees to cover that brood, from what I see of the pics you posted, and the brood will most likey die the first night/day. If you want to save it, do reduce it to a nuc and give it feed, both syrup and pollen sub. Us an inner frame feeder and hope it does not cause it to get robbed out. Otherwise, as Michael said, this hive looks dead.
 
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