[SeaCucumber]

Are my queen deaths normal?

I started with 3 packages in dead outs last year. In June, hives ran low on eggs and all queens superseded. I inspected weekly for 2 or 3 weeks and swapped brood and queen cells. I treated in fall and winter with OAV. I wintered 3 hives and tried to equalize them (4 mediums). All 3 were getting pollen in late winter, then 1 died. They superseded in June. I made 3 queens and have 5 hives.

One supersedure hive had very little brood and most of the food. 2-10% of capped brood in worker cells was drones. I distributed its food to other hives. I thought it was queenless, so I added a nuc and capped brood. I found the eggs and old queen. It was skinny. I put it in a nuc.

I finish a 20 day OAV round tonight. My order of 2 treatment free queens arrives next week.

 

[Akademee]

What you need to keep in mind when you treat is that the queen gets hit every time you apply it. The workers die off in 6 weeks so they won't see multiple treatment regimens. I know of many people who use OAV who remove the queen when they perform the vaporization and place her back in 10-15 minutes later. This prevents the queen from getting nailed with treatment after treatment. The commercial guys I know treat like crazy and while their winter losses are very low, they do requeen every year.