Cannibalism of brood?

[LearningAlways009]

I'm reading a book at the moment called "The Biology of the Honey Bee" by Mark L. Winston. it was published i believe in 1987, and i don't know how much the information could change.. but he mentions in time of excessive stress, workers may cannibalize the brood for sustenance.. has anyone come across this kind of thing before?

 

[Finman]

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This autumn I had a short of pollen in several 3 frame mating nucs.
One queen was eager to lay. I gove a pollen frame to the nuc.
A week later I looked the frame. Pollen was gone and all larvae too.

I gove a new fat rame of pollen and they started again the larva feeding.

So total larva eating I have not ever seen.

 

[Into the lions den]

in time of excessive stress, workers may cannibalize the brood for sustenance.. has anyone come across this kind of thing before?

This can happen, yes. As bees are close to the end with starvation, no honey left in the hive at all, they can start to uncap and consume their own brood. Throwing the remnants of their own immature brood ( in particular white pupal/larval remains ) out the door is the first external sign that you have a major crisis on your hands.

Yes, I have seen it. Very infrequently but nonetheless have had it happen. An emergency feed sorts it out, but it is unlikely the colony will fully recover from such a knock until the following season. Often beekeeper triggered due to taking off all the supers for extraction unaware of how little has been left in the nest area, and then the weather or flowering pattern moves into a serious dearth phase.

Some types of bee are more prone to this event than others. Colonies (often of a yellower persuasion but not exclusively) that keep breeding regardless of external stimulus are especially vulnerable. Bees that keep a stores corner/s/arc in the top of the brood frames are the best at avoiding this.

If you look at Nortons albums he has pictures of the brood pattern of his superbees. Yes they are wonderful, but there is no stores presence on the combs shown. This means there is NOTHING for the bees if you take off all the honey in the upper boxes and thus if you see this pattern the bees are vulnerable to starvation and the subsequent cannibalising of the brood, and we view it as a danger sign that such an event has to be guarded against all the time, a cautious approach not normally needed with the more frugal stock we tend to use. It is not a sign that these are in anyway bad bees, just you have to manage them in accordance with their own behaviour and not follow the normal assumptions you can with other stock.

Nortons stock only mentioned here because of the presence of his photos, not that his bees have a serious problem that way.

 

[Poly Hive]

Further to Murray's expert post above: many beekeepers, esp the newer ones have very little idea of just how fast a colony can run out of stores, which is the converse of course of how fast they can run out of storage space on a good flow.

One has to be aware.

PH

 

[Finman]

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Bees start to rear larvae before cleansing flight even if out temp is under -20C.
During that time the queen lays surely tightly into every cell of area, but afterwards the brood becomes spotty. Workers command what they rear, not the queen.

Workers eate eggs and larvae. You cannot find them decaying on bottom.
Eating eggs and larvae it is not cannibalism but it is the way to save energy and use valuable protein carefully.

Bees have a system to press brake in brooing when they do not get food from nature..

In natural spring build up the brood area is often spotty. With patty feeding the brood is nice and even. It tells that patty food is good (pollen, yeast, soya, vitamins, sugar).


When a solitary ant makes its first nest cavity, it lays eggs and eate them. It has a big food sack in its abdomen. It does not come out from its cavity. It feeds its few worker larvae and one day she has 5 first workers.

Ants and bees have developed fro wasps.

 

[mbc]

Cannibalism also sometimes occurs when treating with thymol products. Not sure if the brood dies first and then the bees eat bits of it before discarding the rest or if the bees actively eat the brood in a deliberate effort to move the nest away from the horrible stincky stuff ( second option's more likely IMO )

 

[mbc]

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Eating eggs and larvae it is not cannibalism but it is the way to save energy and use valuable protein carefully.

.

That's cannibalism in anybody's language

 

[Finman]

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A frame, brood from corner to corner.
It is rare. Corners are often cold and bees do not use them.
A beekeeper may pick an exceptional frame and take a photo.
As Norton says, he keeps his queens in one box. He says that it is enough.
i cannot see any good reason to that.


Bees' natural system is that pollen stores are very next to brood. Why to disturb their instincts?

Yes I know. Professional beekeepers have many standard systems that they work goes fast without thinking. My nursing system is very slow. I have too big hives.

 

[mbc]

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Bees' natural system is that pollen stores are very next to brood. Why to disturb their instincts?

I totally agree, which confuses me regarding something often noted about poly hives, that is that they'll brood up the frames right up to the side of the box ( these frames are normally full of pollen and stores in wood hives).
Sorry to take the thread off on a tangent, but where do the bees put their pollen if the outside brood frames are full of brood ? in the super ?

 

[Poly Hive]

They tend to pollen arch.

Timber hives seem to store more than they strictly need for their brooding and use it as insulation.

Remove the need for that, ie use poly and the amount stored drops.

PH

 

[mbc]

They tend to pollen arch.

Timber hives seem to store more than they strictly need for their brooding and use it as insulation.

Remove the need for that, ie use poly and the amount stored drops.

PH

Could this be why timber hives have brood earlier in the Spring thanm poly hives ?

 

[oliver90owner]

Timber hives seem to store more than they strictly need for their brooding and use it as insulation.

The converse may be equally considered. That in timber hives the amount of brooding is restricted by the insulation value of the hive material?

Brooding uses up food stores very quickly (compared to use for thermal energy throughout the winter cluster period). So bees need both for effective rapid spring build-up - both stores and space. Add in other requirements like water, warmth, adequate protein (and likely others) and one may understand it is not a completely simplistic situation in the spring, as to whether/when the bees decide to encourage the queen to lay more prolifically.

RAB

 

[Poly Hive]

My Scottish experience was that the timber brooded earlier than poly and that was driven wy water issues B. Mobus thought.

Now I am all poly or as near as makes no odds I dinna see it.

I point out that the poly rapidly out stripped the timber when they got going.

PH

 

[Finman]

Could this be why timber hives have brood earlier in the Spring thanm poly hives ?

Poly hives build up faster than cold wooden hives. At least in my yard.

 

[Finman]

Timber hives seem to store more than they strictly need for their brooding and use it as insulation.

The converse may be equally considered. That in timber hives the amount of brooding is restricted by the insulation value of the hive material?

Brooding uses up food stores very quickly (compared to use for thermal energy throughout the winter cluster period). So bees need both for effective rapid spring build-up - both stores and space. Add in other requirements like water, warmth, adequate protein (and likely others) and one may understand it is not a completely simplistic situation in the spring, as to whether/when the bees decide to encourage the queen to lay more prolifically.

RAB

This discussion is again out of horizont.

Build up is not rapid. It takes 3 weeks time whatever you do.

Wintered colony size rules, how many frames of brood the colony can maintain. Later in spring the insulating features rules when nurser bees are enough and pollen enough from nature.

One rule is that brood cycle is 3 weeks, It takes its own time what ever you do.Two cycles are 6 weeks and then wintered bees are all gone.From laying to forager it takes 6 weeks.

First minimum factor is number of nurser bees.

All hives start to rear brood very early. If pollen store ceases, the colony stops brood rearing. If the store is huge, like with Carniolans, they continue brood rearing.

When I started to give pollen patty to Italians their build up was as fastas Carniolans'.

Frames have 10mm gaps and they insulate nothing.Air and heat escapes quickly from gaps.

 

[oliver90owner]

Finman, you quote my post and then rant on unconnected issues or agree with exactly what I said, but still seem to rant.

3 weeks it is for a brood cycle (most will know that) but zero eggs layed = zero workers emerging = dwindling. The more eggs layed, the more emerging workers after that three weeks. That means with more eggs layed, the build-up must be quicker as there will be a break-even situation wher eggs layed = foragers lost after 3 weeks and with more than that a build up!

First minimum factor is number of nurser bees.

Agreed, but that number will be able to sevice differing amounts of brood dependent on other factors (such as temperatures inside and outside the hive), so that factor, while being one of them is not necessarily the first.

If pollen store ceases, the colony stops brood rearing.

We are not in disagreement! I wrote 'other requirements...adequate protein'

Frames have 10mm gaps and they insulate nothing.Air and heat escapes quickly from gaps.

Not sure that I even mentioned air gaps, but while on the subject, I agree up to a point - if these gaps are filled with workers, that air and heat is retained in the broodnest far longer than 'escaping quickly'. So we have a 'knock-on effect' more bees = more warm air retained = less heat lost qiuickly = more brooding possible = more brooding possible (3 weeks later).

Back to insulation - I remarked only that the amount of brooding might be considered as a function of the insulation value of the hive walls.

Certainly not simplistic, that is for sure. Oh, I think I said that earlier....

 

[Black Comb]

I've had 3 hives do this this year.
All had plenty of stores, it was all about Apiguard.
All were strong colonies. I blame using Apiguard from a tub instead of the sachets. Either it's stronger or I got it wrong on the dosage, but I did carefully follow the instructions.

HIve 1 & 2 ate all the eggs and brood but stayed in the hive.
Hive 3 ate all the eggs and brood and filled themselves with stores before absconding. Fortunately the queen was clipped so they are now in a polynuc 20 yards away.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Peter, I've seen brood being chucked out of the hive - closest to the apiguard - but not absconding - yet.
I've used a tub and not had any problems different from the sachets. if the weather is very warm then the thymol evaporates more quickly and will upset the bees more than if the weather is cool.

I guess with a sachet if you expect hot weather you can just peel a bit of the top off which might slow the release of vapour.

 

[Finman]

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Oliwer! I have studied the Spring build up twenty years comparing hives in different situtation

- meaning of poly versus 3 thick wood

- windy place - calm place

- pollen feeding , patty feeding, sugar feeding

- small hives 5 frames or under, normal 10 frames , super big 20 frames

8 years:

- bottom heating - non heating big hives - small hives

- comparing my hive size with other beekeepers

Meaning of weather and pollen foraging versus rainy weeks and non foraging

i do not know what you have done and what is the base of your knowledge.

 

[LearningAlways009]

thanks for the comments guys, I thought it was a curious bit of reading.. but the more i think about it, eating young is pretty widespread in the insect world. It shouldn't have surprised me haha