Fast bee decline

kkmrk · 2025-09-15T17:03:48-0400

Replaced bottom board with screen bottom board 5 days ago. Six seams bees in top box.. two. medium boxes, June swarm. Had a couple of brood frames mostly hatched out,6 full honey frames. 5 Oav treatment in aug. one day mite drop less than 10. Last year all 8 hives survived.
yesterday I noticed hives on both sides had almost bearding and were doing heavy grooming. Didn’t think much of it till today I noticed no acitive in center hive, opened it to find two seams total, no hive beetles no signs of mites. Larva some yellow, some capped brood alive some capped brood milky, not stingy.

any idea what I have going on? attached what brood looked like. Big queen was still in hive.

squarepeg · 2025-09-15T18:54:22-0400

spotty brood pattern, yellow dead larvae.

sometimes mites/viruses, sometimes efb.

consider calling state inspector to see if they can bring a field test to rule in/out efb.

in the mean time, look carefully at the brood frames in your other hives for similar shotgun brood and yellowing.

consider moving this hive to an isolated location with no other bee hives nearby.

HoneyBiii · 2025-09-16T04:58:46-0400

Drone layer queen.

ShelleyStuart · 2025-09-16T06:37:49-0400

I don't have a ton of experience with disease ID, but the noted cells (from the first picture) concern me. I would be testing for EFB, which doesn't rope as much as AFB does. The two larvae that I see are twisted, not neatly C-shaped, and another not in this close-up you can see the trachea.

Your adult decline may be sudden, but your larval decline has probably been going on for a bit, which may domino into a sudden adult decline.

Jack Grimshaw · 2025-09-16T07:47:31-0400

Classic European Foulbrood symptoms.
Call your inspector or send samples here.

How to Submit Samples : USDA ARS

Jack Grimshaw · 2025-09-16T07:50:33-0400

Personally I would shake all the bees into soapy water and dispose of equipment as state regulations require.

ShelleyStuart · 2025-09-16T12:38:43-0400

EFB is notifiable in LA but does not automatically require disposing of equipment. With early diagnosis, a shook swarm can fix the colony. It's late in the year and I might call it a loss but you're in Louisiana; I'll defer to locals about the likely success of saving a colony this way.

squarepeg · 2025-09-16T14:01:02-0400

@kkmrk, you mentioned this was a caught swarm. did it come from your yard, a known source, or an unknown source?

did you bring in any new colonies from outside your yard?

kkmrk · 2025-09-17T09:24:35-0400

Froze all frames. Will see if frozen brood can be tested. I normally catch more swarms than the number bee of hives. Likely not all my swarms. Thx for the input. Will check 15 remaining hives today.

P6SMSKC · 2025-09-21T01:48:02-0400

I had something very similar 3 years ago in August I think.

I swore up and down it was EFB based off how it looked and what I had read EFB looked like.

I sent samples off to the US bee lab in Maryland and they tested for foulbrood and the tests came back negative.

I have attached a few pictures I was able to find on my phone of that hive. Note the shriveled and twisted larvae that are yellowing and turning a brownish color. There are a couple that you can see the trachea line.

I tried everything I could think of to fix the problem.. “shook swarm” into brand new equipment with lots of syrup, requeen, give frames from a healthy colony to them… nothing worked. This hive ended up dying by Thanksgiving that year. Because it tested negative for foulbrood I think it was a virus/mite issue… PMS probably? Either way, you may send off some larvae to get tested but also it could very will be a mite/virus issue. They test for free you just have to pay the postage.

jdavionic · 2025-09-21T07:20:54-0400

ChatGPT leans towards AFB

crofter · 2025-09-21T10:41:04-0400

I would say that is a blind lead. EFB generally has the major infection period and larval death pre capping; AFB it occurs post capping.

Only a few EFB cells with lesser infection survive to get capped. Thus the sunken capings and perforated capping is more definitive for AFB.

The twisted, "belly ache" larvae is poster card for EFB

wildbranch2007 · 2025-09-21T09:13:58-0400

did anyone check with forafrank our resident expert?

Gino45 · 2025-09-21T13:49:21-0400

Whatever you want to call it, my experience is that brood that looks like the photos here is the direct result of viruses related to varroa.

crofter · 2025-09-21T16:51:37-0400

One thing that can complicate ones thinking is that when EFB is in advanced stages, mite counts can be really low.
In good times varro success breeding rate is only 2 per cycle. When only a small percentage of queens eggs are advancing to capped stage there are few places for varroa to reproduce.

Granted when a hive is in down spiral due to parasitic mite collapse, EFB could also be present. EFB can also be major problem even when mite count has been continuously near zero. That is the situation I experienced in 2017.

Fast bee decline

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