Ando
New Bee
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2009
- Messages
- 80
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Leicester, uk
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 7
Hi
I'm a newbee and am doing a beginners course, hopefully you won't get bored reading this but I wanted to give as much info as I could about what has happened with my bees and what I found this morning.
I had my bees now for 4 weeks and the nucs have been increasing in size over this time, I had the bee inspector out 3 weeks ago today to give them the once over, mainly to satisfy the other local bee keepers in the local association, as I was getting them from out of town, anyway on the inspection Varroa was noted to be quiet bad, so I immediately, on the advice of the bee inspector, put on some Apiguard in the hope that this would sort it in the coming weeks before I had to put on a super, I only have one Varroa floor at the mo and the hive (1) that this was on I have been monitoring, there has been loads of them drop off and each day the screen cleared, over the last 2 weeks since the Api has been on I have noticed this hive (1) getting bigger than hive (2) so last week I swapped the floor over to the other hive (2) and each day have look at the screen to see how many there have been, lots of them!!.
With the weather being so hot I have been told about api slowing down the queen as it obviously evaporates quicker than in the autumn, I checked the screen on Saturday night about 5ish and could hear very loud buzzing from within Hive 2, but hive 1, 3 feet away was not making this noise, I just thought they must be hot, I was the same on Monday night but later about 8 ish.
Anyway so this morning I do my weekly inspection and start on Hive 1, this colony is growing nicely and I spotted the queen and lots of eggs, larvae, capped brood and stores, I have made the decision to take off the Apiguard a week early and add a super so they can expand.
When I came to hive 2 I took off the roof and on the crown board were lots of deads bees maybe around 30-50, I took this off and saw bees on the frames and then noticed some dead ones around the edge of the frames, I have had an empty super on the top with a feeder on since I've had them, they have not took down the syrup like hive 1 has and there were load of dead bees in this also, I started to remove frames, on the outside of the BB there are 2 frames each side that are still foundation with them only just starting to draw out on the other frames next to these, I then saw some stores and pollen and then spotted the Queen, I did notice a few eggs but no larvae and there was capped brood, on some frames there were dead bees in the cells on removing these they were Varroa damaged, I also noticed some cells with slipper brood in.
The bees were quite calm and I didn't use much smoke after I had first blew some in the front of the hive. I did spot some bees that had died on the edge frames and it looked like they had brown substance coming out their backsides and this had stuck them to the frame. As I took out more frames I could see loads of dead bees on the floor of the hive, I decided to take all the frames out the BB and take a closer look and some pics, there were thousands of dead bees...
I really have no Idea why they all have died, has anyone come across this before, I'm really hoping its not a newbee error and I haven't made a school boy error with them!
Below are some pics I took from this morning any feed back or theory's would be great as I'm a bit gutted as hive 1 is doing so well, seems really strange that one can be so strong and the other something like this can occur? I did think maybe nosema but they wasn't any poo on the outside if the hive.
One last thing, On one of the frames of foundation at the edge of the BB I noticed a Caterpiller/Maggot thing that had ate it's way in to the foundation, could this have been a Wax Moth larvae? Meant to take a pic but forgot, it was a whiteish cream and had a black head.
Anyway thanks for reading.
Cheers
Mark.
The Queen
This is a pic of the dead bees in the cells I have circled them.
Dead bees
Brood Box
Floor
On this one I hate to think how many there are here as it shows how deep the layer of bees is.
I'm a newbee and am doing a beginners course, hopefully you won't get bored reading this but I wanted to give as much info as I could about what has happened with my bees and what I found this morning.
I had my bees now for 4 weeks and the nucs have been increasing in size over this time, I had the bee inspector out 3 weeks ago today to give them the once over, mainly to satisfy the other local bee keepers in the local association, as I was getting them from out of town, anyway on the inspection Varroa was noted to be quiet bad, so I immediately, on the advice of the bee inspector, put on some Apiguard in the hope that this would sort it in the coming weeks before I had to put on a super, I only have one Varroa floor at the mo and the hive (1) that this was on I have been monitoring, there has been loads of them drop off and each day the screen cleared, over the last 2 weeks since the Api has been on I have noticed this hive (1) getting bigger than hive (2) so last week I swapped the floor over to the other hive (2) and each day have look at the screen to see how many there have been, lots of them!!.
With the weather being so hot I have been told about api slowing down the queen as it obviously evaporates quicker than in the autumn, I checked the screen on Saturday night about 5ish and could hear very loud buzzing from within Hive 2, but hive 1, 3 feet away was not making this noise, I just thought they must be hot, I was the same on Monday night but later about 8 ish.
Anyway so this morning I do my weekly inspection and start on Hive 1, this colony is growing nicely and I spotted the queen and lots of eggs, larvae, capped brood and stores, I have made the decision to take off the Apiguard a week early and add a super so they can expand.
When I came to hive 2 I took off the roof and on the crown board were lots of deads bees maybe around 30-50, I took this off and saw bees on the frames and then noticed some dead ones around the edge of the frames, I have had an empty super on the top with a feeder on since I've had them, they have not took down the syrup like hive 1 has and there were load of dead bees in this also, I started to remove frames, on the outside of the BB there are 2 frames each side that are still foundation with them only just starting to draw out on the other frames next to these, I then saw some stores and pollen and then spotted the Queen, I did notice a few eggs but no larvae and there was capped brood, on some frames there were dead bees in the cells on removing these they were Varroa damaged, I also noticed some cells with slipper brood in.
The bees were quite calm and I didn't use much smoke after I had first blew some in the front of the hive. I did spot some bees that had died on the edge frames and it looked like they had brown substance coming out their backsides and this had stuck them to the frame. As I took out more frames I could see loads of dead bees on the floor of the hive, I decided to take all the frames out the BB and take a closer look and some pics, there were thousands of dead bees...
I really have no Idea why they all have died, has anyone come across this before, I'm really hoping its not a newbee error and I haven't made a school boy error with them!
Below are some pics I took from this morning any feed back or theory's would be great as I'm a bit gutted as hive 1 is doing so well, seems really strange that one can be so strong and the other something like this can occur? I did think maybe nosema but they wasn't any poo on the outside if the hive.
One last thing, On one of the frames of foundation at the edge of the BB I noticed a Caterpiller/Maggot thing that had ate it's way in to the foundation, could this have been a Wax Moth larvae? Meant to take a pic but forgot, it was a whiteish cream and had a black head.
Anyway thanks for reading.
Cheers
Mark.
The Queen
This is a pic of the dead bees in the cells I have circled them.
Dead bees
Brood Box
Floor
On this one I hate to think how many there are here as it shows how deep the layer of bees is.