Confused bees outside base of nuclues

[PeteC]

Hi everyone,

I am seeing several bees on the floor outside my nucleus, they are unable or unwilling to fly (wings seem undamaged) and they appear to be attempting to scrape something off their abdomen but I can't see what. There is a video here:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3vDTfE628A[/ame]

Any opinions gratefully received, thanks!

 

[Nopants]

Could be any thing, If you have a lot of bees crawling along the grass and not flying this could give concern. This looks like it is trying to clean its self up removing Honey residue, cobwebs etc. have you got any wax moth in the frames that would entangle the bees in silk

 

[MJBee]

The next one you see I would sacrifice and examine closely with a lens.

As well as honey, pollen, wax moth silk and cobwebs I would put varroa fairly high on the suspect list.

 

[rowbow]

It could be problems with wax glands?
John

 

[PeteC]

These are really useful replies, thank you all. I'm hoping it's just cobwebs, as there are quite a few spiders in the garden at the moment. We'll check for wax moths next time we're in the (quite poorly sealed!) nucleus.

None of the individuals I saw yesterday had obvious varroa but will do a dissection if this continues.

Thanks again.