Another show and tell poser

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Not much to say, just have a look at the photos and try and guess what has (or is) happening
disregard the lack of brood as that would just be a red herring across the trail, but some background:
Booming colony of healthy bees, headed by a gorgeous anthracite black 2020 queen laying over nine frames.

 

[E&MBees]

AFB has sunken brood cappings and spotty brood pattern. In photo 2 there are some cells with black shapes in them. Hard to tell in shadows, bees or possibly scales.

 

[WoodenBeam]

Can’t see much in the way of stores on those frames…….
Eggs in No.3 piccy?

Newly laying queen that has finally come into lay in a colony that has had a prime swarm leave plus casts……now currently being robbed out????

 

[madasafish]

cells nibbled open, little brood, irregular pattern, some suspiciously flat/sunken cells,a queen cell?
Varroa overdose?

 

[TomH]

Greasy sunken cappings, pepper pot brood pattern, some perforated cells, so I would go with AFB as well? Can't zoom in the pics to see what's in the cells though.

 

[Wilco]

1. Not a happy larva
2. Sunken cappings (sample of many).
Also very patchy pattern.

Going with AFB but not seen it before so not certain. Sorry to hear if it's one of yours.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

keep guessing folks (in fact I assume so far we've just had guesses/stabs in the dark?)

 

[elainemary]

All bees seem to have k wing type symptoms? Wings all spread out.. is it tracheal mite?

 

[W0otz]

Booming colony of healthy bees - Assuming it's not disease then.
Headed by a gorgeous anthracite black 2020 queen - not newly mated just coming into lay.
Laying over nine frames - but (without the ability to zoom in) looks like old capped brood and mostly young larvae and eggs, not much if anything in between.


Brood break through June gap, with just a few bees left to emerge, now the queen has gone nuts as the flow begins?
Usurpation swarm taking over a failing colony?

 

[deemann1]

Looks starved out

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

All bees seem to have k wing type symptoms?

No - I think you're seeing things

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Looks starved out

nope, plenty of food in other frames

 

[Erichalfbee]

gorgeous anthracite black 2020 queen

Chalk brood!?

 

[jeff33]

When did you last inspect this hive? Did the queen dry out or swarm (+cast), failed to raise a new one and the hive is slowly dying?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Chalk brood!?

Give the lady a coconut!
It's a serious case of chalkbrood, worse I've ever seen - the pepperbox pattern you can see is actually all the chalkbrood mummies which the bees have capped (hence the sunken appearance - but none appear greasy) and all the brood has long emerged. Harder to spot when the queen is laying well but I cheated here, I knew she was chalky after a Demarree last year where some frames were over 50% chalk, and was experimenting just to see how bad it would look after twelve months on fresh comb by conducting another Demarree whilst I was waiting for a new queen to see if the comb was salvageable (in actual fact, the bees have stayed with these frames and have cleared a lot of the chalkbrood out compared to last week) thus the reason there is no fresh brood there and no stores as it's all in the shallows underneath.
I had intended to bring my tweezers with me to open up a lot of the cells and take photographs of the mummies within - I forgot on both instances!
An interesting thing as well is I still took a nuc off this queen last year, when we (me and the SBI who was doing my DASH assesment) opened the nuc with the new queen we found loads of chalkbrood piled on the OMF, seems the bees had been clearing all the cells whilst waiting for the queen to mate. This year that queen's colony is now filling five supers and not a sign of any chalkiness. Not even early in the season.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

When did you last inspect this hive? Did the queen dry out or swarm (+cast), failed to raise a new one and the hive is slowly dying?

nope - queen was still laying like a train up until she became one with the fence post on Wednesday to make room for her successor

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

This reminds of the story about a group of medical students trying to diagnose their professor's strange shuffling gait as he was observed gingerly making his way across the quad.
Said professor overheard the conversation and butted in "well gentlemen" he said "you Smith think my love of a good port has brought on a gout flare up, you Williams on the other hand think it may be the onset of arthritis in the knees or ankles whilst you Thomson have really gone out on a limb and conflated my advancing years with the onset of dementia!! well, I personally thought it was just last night's lamb hot pot had caused a bit of embarrassing flatulence so I thought I'd sneak one out before the lecture, well, Gentlemen - it seems we were all mistaken!!

 

[binhbees]

a waste of time to guess due to images

 

[Erichalfbee]

a waste of time to guess due to images

Not at all.
There has been a useful discussion.

 

[magor]

Give the lady a coconut!
It's a serious case of chalkbrood, worse I've ever seen - the pepperbox pattern you can see is actually all the chalkbrood mummies which the bees have capped (hence the sunken appearance - but none appear greasy) and all the brood has long emerged. Harder to spot when the queen is laying well but I cheated here, I knew she was chalky after a Demarree last year where some frames were over 50% chalk, and was experimenting just to see how bad it would look after twelve months on fresh comb by conducting another Demarree whilst I was waiting for a new queen to see if the comb was salvageable (in actual fact, the bees have stayed with these frames and have cleared a lot of the chalkbrood out compared to last week) thus the reason there is no fresh brood there and no stores as it's all in the shallows underneath.
I had intended to bring my tweezers with me to open up a lot of the cells and take photographs of the mummies within - I forgot on both instances!
An interesting thing as well is I still took a nuc off this queen last year, when we (me and the SBI who was doing my DASH assesment) opened the nuc with the new queen we found loads of chalkbrood piled on the OMF, seems the bees had been clearing all the cells whilst waiting for the queen to mate. This year that queen's colony is now filling five supers and not a sign of any chalkiness. Not even early in the season.

so it was not genetic?( Queen) but due to ''dangers'' of demaree method cause of bad weather ?(brood cold) or flow stop?

which thing you think stopped the spread?new combs? new Q?hive change? open floor? feeding ?stop feeding?