[Beelosopher]

Hello all,

I went through some nucs recently after we had a hard rain. Short version is that a couple of my nuc boxes need improvements as they took on some rain. Anyway, I noticed one nuc is defecating outside and on the hive. This is always a sign something might be wrong to me because it has been sunny for several days after our spell of rain.

I noticed the following:
1. small larvae were tossed out of the hive, white (chilled brood?)
2. some black larvea in worker comb sized cells.
3. the existing larvae appears to look like it was tumbled around in the cell, not like your usual neat looking placement.
4. bees are very drippy on the frames, but not agressive.
5. I saw a newly emerged queen (emerged in the last two days or so), She obviously isn't laying, but she will eventually be making her mating flights, so they have a queen.
6. defecating outside the hive when they haven't been holed up for a long period.
7. saw one emerging brood I think was dead, because it had its tongue all the way out.

I was debating giving them a fresh frame of brood with nurse bees to help them along. But I wasn't sure if something larger was going on so I thought I would post and see what opinions are. If necessary I can grab some pictures.

I was thinking maybe PMS?

 

[Chemguy]

Take a look at this thread: http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?256079-Black-Larvae

 

[wildbranch2007]

Hello all,

I went through some nucs recently after we had a hard rain. Short version is that a couple of my nuc boxes need improvements as they took on some rain. Anyway, I noticed one nuc is defecating outside and on the hive. This is always a sign something might be wrong to me because it has been sunny for several days after our spell of rain.

I noticed the following:
1. small larvae were tossed out of the hive, white (chilled brood?)
2. some black larvea in worker comb sized cells.
3. the existing larvae appears to look like it was tumbled around in the cell, not like your usual neat looking placement.
4. bees are very drippy on the frames, but not agressive.
5. I saw a newly emerged queen (emerged in the last two days or so), She obviously isn't laying, but she will eventually be making her mating flights, so they have a queen.
6. defecating outside the hive when they haven't been holed up for a long period.
7. saw one emerging brood I think was dead, because it had its tongue all the way out.

I was debating giving them a fresh frame of brood with nurse bees to help them along. But I wasn't sure if something larger was going on so I thought I would post and see what opinions are. If necessary I can grab some pictures.

I was thinking maybe PMS?

when you made up the nuc, I assume you left the nuc in your yard, where the original hive was located? If so many of the older bees could have gone back to the original hive, leaving the nuc with too few bees to keep the brood warm. My temps went down to as low as 38 a little while ago. I will be going by tomorrow afternoon, if you aren't going to be home mark the nucs and I will take a look at them. Did you check the hives the nucs came from to see if anything is strange there.

 

[Beelosopher]

Thanks for the info chem guy. I will be in my three honey producers tomorrow and home all day. Would love another pair of eyes.

When I made this nuc, it received a frame of brood with nurse bees, and a partial brrod frame with bees. This was to be a mating nuc for my grafted queens, so it got a frame of honey outside of that and two empty frames. This nuc did get drenched, and I didn't know if for a couple days. So it lost bees, and I just found out how many today. Already making modifications to the mating nuc boxes for next year.

I checked all my hives/nucs except three - checking them tomorrow. I don't see anything similar to this in any of them.

Here are some pictures.

FYI - I mashed that comb with my hive tool to get one of the black larvae out. There is only one frame in the nuc with any amount of brood.

forgot to mention those pinholes in some of the brood.

 

[Beelosopher]

 

[wildbranch2007]

needs more bees, the pin holes look normal they are just capping the brood. more bees will probably solve most of your problems.

the defecating on the outside, is the same problem as during the winter, we had that cold stretch, small cluster can't leave the brood for to long so they go and right back in.

 

[sqkcrk]

What I saw in the photos looks like healthy brood. Not much of it, but of a healthy color. Pearly white larvae. Maybe you had some chalk brood? Not sure.

 

[Beelosopher]

I thought the larvae color looked off, more yellow than usual, but it could have been me misjudging after I saw some of the black brood (picture 2). Sounds like giving them another frame of emerging brood may be in order. I would be happier with my misjudgment than I would be to have EFB.

 

[Beelosopher]

Well it looks like it was overblown from my perspective. Looking much healthier, and I think they just need bees. When they got rained in, I think it killed a lot of them, then they comb looked like crap, and brood was lost. Thanks for the help wildbranch. Just bad management on my part, not noticing the rain in there for a couple days. Switching the box did a lot, and adding bees should do the rest.