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Confounding Fall Inspection. Just when I think I'm getting the hang of things...

5K views 35 replies 8 participants last post by  Acebird 
#1 ·
I'm in the middle of an Apiguard treatment. Like I am exactly in the middle of it. Today I went in to put on the second tin and decided that I would use this as an opportunity to do a full scale tear down because they were calm. Here's what I found.

1. Everything heavily propolised (unsure on spelling). By heavy I mean I would describe it as gunky.

2. Dysentery on frames AND on the Apiguard treatment tin.

3. Absolutely zero honey stores. I had removed the honey supers for treatment but there had been some on the brood frames when I left them to be treated. Now everything is BARREN...like someone took a vacuum to the honey and left the brood.

4. There are two small swarm/supercedure cells with larvae in them. They are at the top of the frames. I would characterize them as swarm because they were not built from an existing cell but maybe you guys have more expert input here!

5. I could not find the queen. I can never find the queen in this hive but when I got to the second to last frame the bees started to run around frantically into a big mass and then I heard piping/squealing. Directly after the piping, piles of bees rushed to the direction of the sound...so I put back that frame lol. Theres a video of it on my instagram which is linked in my signature if you care to look. I took the video after the bees calmed down a bit, which is when I thought to pull out the camera.


So I have a NUMBER of questions and there are probably things I haven't even considered yet. The four most obvious are:

1. If I have a new queen, will Apiguard affect her mating and acceptance? At this point after one tin and a bout of queenlessness plus her attempting to mate, won't I be in good shape mite wise?

2. How well is she likely to mate this time of year? My two hives have maybe a hundred drones between them if I'm being generous. Can I afford to wait for her to mate? I'm really unlikely to find her as a virgin anyhow...

3. Should I do anything about those queen cells?

4. Is this HIVE DOOMED???
 
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#6 ·
My fault! I don't think I was clear enough about the type of brood I had. I'm still a bit confused. If she died 1-3 days ago, why would I have heard the whining/trumpeting sound today? Unless this new queen hatched sometime within the past 24 hours and killed the old queen within the past 24 hours as well?

At any rate...I'm really dubious that I can wait for her to mate and still have a strong hive to go into winter. Not to mention the dysentery problem in the hive...
 
#8 ·
you are correct that is weird. but so is swarm cells that were reworked from normal cells as swarm cells are typically very deliberate. My guess is they started a supercedure got their queen killed and made emergencies while they could........ just a guess.

I guess we need further clarification on " they were not built from an existing cell " I took that as not built from a queen cup
 
#13 ·
Puzzles like this are part of what makes keeping bees so magical. Perhaps someone else sees something I am missing and can steer you to the promise land with certainty but absent that, if it were me I would...
1 - since you said the hive is bone dry, I would feed 1:1 syrup (all they want) via an internal, protected feeder. Be sure to use white granulated sugar and it should be fully dissolved.
2 - add a pollen patty
3 - leave the queen cells alone for now, check back in 7-8 days, they should be torn down if all is well or capped if they in fact are raising a queen. It is late but in your zone I'd roll the dice and let them try, especially since you still have drones buzzing around.
4 - add a frame of eggs without bees from another hive if possible. The brood boost will help the low numbers recover quicker and if there was an issue with the previous cells they will start new QCs on that frame.

If you don't have robber screens on that would be good too as the feeding will increase the odds of creating robbing which you don't want at this point.

Please keep us posted whatever happens so we can all learn from your situation.
 
#14 ·
Thank you so much for humoring and enduring my questions! I will:

1. Just remove the Apiguard and give them back their super full of honey. I pulled it to treat.
2. Skip the pollen patty for now just because I used to have a problem with SHB and the pollen is still coming in thick here.
3. Check back on the status of the cups in a week.
4. I may or may not add a frame of eggs from my other hive. I bought it as a package and although it is doing well I don't want to rob a hive that might actually make it to save this one.

Robbing screens are definitely in place since this property has a miserable yellow jacket population. I am very much worried about the dysentery situation. I can't find anything good online about bees defecating inside the hive throughout summer months. All the posts are about winter shut in situations and early spring feeding. These bees are defecating in the hive right after a honey flow so I wish I could find some good resources for that.
 
#15 ·
Sounds like a good plan you have there, but I think I might still feed them the syrup for a couple reasons. 1) better if they can save that caped honey for winter stores 2) the feed will simulate a flow and should increase the laying rate of the new/current queen. 3) hoping it might clean out their gut and get rid of the dysentery.

Btw- a frame of eggs is a mere day or two worth of laying for your other queen, minimal impact on the donor hive but can be a tremendous boost for the recipient.
 
#16 ·
I used Apiguard 7-8 years ago, did not care for the results. It seemed to affect the queens performance, to me. It could be they are replacing the queen because of the combination of no stores and the Apiguard. It could be it's the old queen you heard squealing from the bees chasing her around or possibly even balling her. I like your most recent plan. The dysentery could be from the combination of no stores and the Apiguard also. I know other's have used Apiguard and like it, but I won't be using it again myself because of the bad experience from using it that one season years ago.
 
#18 ·
Just reading about Apiguard use on another site it appears it is temperature sensitive. Higher temperatures requires less dosage, bigger colonies require higher dosage. Possibly the dysentery is caused by overdose, queen problems are not so unusual and may be related to dosage. Being a doctor to the hive and not understanding the pharmacy is never a good thing.
 
#29 ·
I have never done this but maybe you could send a cup of bees to Beltsville and see what you are up against. Diagnosing an unusual situation over the internet is not always accurate.

This hive has had a lot of set backs along with beekeeper interventions that I don't have experience with. It will be difficult even for someone with experience to know what you did right or wrong along the way.
 
#30 ·
I was out in the bee yard trying to set up an electric fence this evening and saw the hive throwing this lady out. There's no chance this could be the virgin queen, right? I've never seen one before but her body looks a bit different to me without the stripes...

http://i.imgur.com/bYUKOlX.jpg
 
#31 ·
UPDATE: Went in to check on the progress in the broodnest and to see if I could snag a few pictures to make things easier to understand. Here are the two queen cells I was talking about plus some shots of the broodnest. If you zoom you should also be able to see larva in these pics. I have not seen any drone cells so far so that doesn't look good for them rearing their own right now even though I have seen a few flying around between the hives here and there. Keep in mind these photos are of two frames only, I just took multiple pics.

http://imgur.com/a/KncLH
 
#32 · (Edited)
Congrats - Looks like they've already finished the job of rearing a new queen. Based on the young larvae in the pics she is mated and laying nicely.

Also, you've got a nice population of bees there with a whole lot more about ready to emerge (last bees from the former queen), I'd re emphasize my suggestion to start feeding right away. That new queen is going to lay like crazy and the hive will quickly blow thru winter resources which you said were almost zero as is.
 
#33 ·
Looks like they've already finished the job of rearing a new queen. Based on the young larvae in the pics she is mated and laying nicely.
I still saw varroa during this inspection. I'm nervous to try another tin of Apiguard at this point but also nervous just to leave it...I'm pretty sure these queen cups had larva in them last week. Should I remove them?
 
#34 ·
Those cells appear to be old, the one on the right emerged and killed the one on the left. Could be wrong but what you saw was likely the remaining RJ that was left after emergence. Let the bees take care of the cups, no need to open the hive just for that.

I don't use apiguard so can't advise when it's safe but I would probably wait at least one more week to let the new queen lay away and load up the brood nest. Does the api label or website give any quidance on this?
 
#35 ·
You are giving me so much hope! Thank you so much for following up. Apiguard usually is applied 4 weeks consecutively, one tin every two weeks. I will give them a week rest though as you suggest a dig a bit deeper to be sure it won't do more damage than good I guess.
 
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