Black Bees

[fizzle]

I had a late season swarm move into a swarm trap the other week. Unfortunately they were too weak to defend the hive but gave it a good go. Initially it was wasps but the other day I noticed a lot of bees entering. Anyhow I decided to end the party and clear it out. Upon inspection I noticed quite a few really dark/black bees were part of the robbing party. I know the Irish Black Bee is the native bee but I have not seen them this dark before. Any thoughts, are they wild dark bees?

 

[Antipodes]

I had a late season swarm move into a swarm trap the other week. Unfortunately they were too weak to defend the hive but gave it a good go. Initially it was wasps but the other day I noticed a lot of bees entering. Anyhow I decided to end the party and clear it out. Upon inspection I noticed quite a few really dark/black bees were part of the robbing party. I know the Irish Black Bee is the native bee but I have not seen them this dark before. Any thoughts, are they wild dark bees?

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The very dark ones look like they are a bit wet perhaps? Like they are perhaps coated in something... Old bees can go dark and hairless as I understand it and then would look particularly dark if wet.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Cbpv - does anyone else think they look shiny and possibly have cbpv?

 

[Antipodes]

Cbpv - does anyone else think they look shiny and possibly have cbpv?

I agree they look shiny but when I clicked twice on the images they gave a really good zoomed in image which shows the liquid appearance on the bees. I've seen bees look like that when sprayed with a sugar syrup. It looks like there are bees cleaning themselves and others too.

 

[steve1958]

The cleaning activity could also be part of CBPV.
The cleaning process removes hairs leaving the bees looking dark and shiny.

The bees do look like bees with CBPV.

Had you sprayed them with anything before starting your inspection?

Also is this a Queen right colony or are these robber bees looking for food

 

[fizzle]

Very good observations. I misted the flying robber bees with a garden hose before I opened the box. This was recommended on another bee keeping blog however seemed to have no effect. There was also a frame feeder which I removed. You can see the gap in pics 1 & 2.

There was no evidence of a queen with the swarm.

 

[Cuckmere couple]

wings look a bit splayed too...are they quivering etc

 

[Swarm]

I expect so after being sprayed

 

[user 20297]

I expect so after being sprayed

In my experience, the quickest way to get black bees is to splash them with water. I had an Abelo feeder that had accumulated a bit of rainwater, which, when I moved it, was then accidentally dribbled on half a dozen bees; first they went very black, then they went very dead, very quickly.

 

[JohnRB]

I had a late season swarm move into a swarm trap the other week. Unfortunately they were too weak to defend the hive but gave it a good go. Initially it was wasps but the other day I noticed a lot of bees entering. Anyhow I decided to end the party and clear it out. Upon inspection I noticed quite a few really dark/black bees were part of the robbing party. I know the Irish Black Bee is the native bee but I have not seen them this dark before. Any thoughts, are they wild dark bees?

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I have just had similar - when I first saw them I thought what bee is this as they were so shiny and so black. Once my brain finally processed that they were in fact honeybees, I did a quick check and decided it was CBPV Type 2, sending a picture to my bee inspector who subsequently agreed. At any other time of year I would try standing them on an open floor and let dead bees drop out - but these are in the middle of an orchard at the moment with wasps just waiting to kill. The advice was to treat for varroa as normal and feed - so that is what I shall do. I shall also go through each frame and remove every infected bee that I can find as there were only about 10 in the whole colony on Tuesday. I imagine this probably won't make much difference as presumably the virus is already present in other bees not yet displaying symptoms? Good luck with your bees