no brood

[silverback]

have just been going through my bees today and discovered four colonies with no brood or any sign of eggs eventhough ifound a queen in each hive.i have recently finished treating hives with api life var and was wondering if it had put the queens off laying anyone experienced same ?

 

[drstitson]

what question did you have in need of answering when you decided to inspect the hives????

 

[drstitson]

and yes - the ALV may have caused the queens to go off lay.

we are also now post equinox and some strains may have stopped laying anyway.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Yep one of mine's stopped laying - in a nuc and not treated with Apiguard on advice of bee inspector, the others are slowing down - treatment beginning this weekend

 

[AndreaW]

I had next to no uncapped brood when I looked last weekend as well. Think my queen has slowed down as well.

 

[Lesley Hoppy]

I am half way through my ALV treatment and have no eggs or larvae in either hive despite seeing queens. It must be the effect of the treatment. They have also uncapped or made holes in the brood that is there ....

 

[Lesley Hoppy]

Yep one of mine's stopped laying - in a nuc and not treated with Apiguard on advice of bee inspector, the others are slowing down - treatment beginning this weekend

Why did the inspector advise against Apiguard?

 

[Chrisfnvs]

Hi All, the Queen in my largest colony stopped laying the moment i put the Apiguard in all the rest in that yard kept on laying so i am not sure if it was the treatment or did she just need a break after wearing herself out, the treatment finishes on Monday so i hope she starts to lay again! she may get one or two brood cycles if i am lucky, i do wonder what long term damage we are doing to our Bees with these chemicals, i supose we have to be cruel to be kind Chris

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Why did the inspector advise against Apiguard?

Although there was varroa there it wasn't a serious load - his thinking was as it was a nuc from an August emergence it would be worth not treating so as not to slow the queen's laying down any quicker (as Apiguard can have that effect) so to have as much winter brood as possible- as long as OA treatment was done later. As it was she's stopped anyway so I may now treat

 

[beeatshellards]

welcome to the forum Silverback, I think the above posts have answered the question, its quite normal , nothing else to add!!

 

[silverback]

thanks for all your commentsgood to know its not only my queens that have gone on strike