Paralytic Bee Virus?

[Adam Bee]

I’m trying to sort through an observation I’ve had with my hive. Moreover, I’ll be hive tomorrow, and I’d love to have advice on anything to look for.

The observations:

A few days ago I noticed a bee clinging to the front of the hive while another two tried to pluck it off. It clung there and eventually the two gave up (10+ mins?) and it stayed there for some time but was gone a few hours later.

I’ve started seeing a few (8-12?) corpses around the hive during the early evening or early morning when I check on the hive.

Two days ago I noticed a few bees on the grass (6-8?) that were not flying. But crawling in the grass.

Today. This afternoon, I noticed a trio of bees clinging to the entrance and not moving. Two were still there at nightfall. In front of the hive, this afternoon, I noticed what looked like a very young bee, or one that had not finished pupating slowly writhing on the grass in front of the hive. I also noted the presence of a few small black ants. By early evening, this bee was not much more than a white peanut shaped blob, as the ants had been cleaning it up. Closer inspection revealed quite a few ants and another dozen partially eaten corpses.

Now, the numbers are not very high (see the thread on “how many dead bees is too many”) and I get the “lay 1000-1500 eggs a day and the colony can lose as many” argument, but (being a noob-bee) I don’t know how concerned I need to be. I have read the paralytic virus ends up killing the bee. I also read that house bees will evict sick virus victims against their will.

(Fwiw: I have seen no VD drops at all so far, but I’ve placed a white board under the hive to see what I get. Also the few ants I have may be eating any that do drop out of the hive.)

A very brief google on apbv and cpbv says “treat by giving more space and keep the colony strong”.

-

Could this be one of the paralytic viruses?

If so, is there anything I can do about it?

Is the volume of bees observed worth worrying about?

Is there anything I should be looking out for in my inspection tomorrow?

Here’s a link to a video of the hive:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1gb7sf2oni91i98/2019-05-22 18.00.30.mov

Those three bees in the center of the image just don’t move. Two were there at dusk and one by nightfall.

 

[Welshboyarchrr]

If you grease or oil your inspection board nothing can walk off.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Looks like a perfectly healthy hive to me - I think you are suffering from a malaise usually seen in Hypochondriacs - you read of all the things that can go wrong and within five minutes you see all the symptoms in yourself
Bees die every day, by the hundreds, so to see a few littered around the hive is a regular thing (not helped by the fact the hive is sat on concrete), you have a young, building colony, sometimes the undertaker bees haven't the time to take the dead far away from the hive, especially during the early morning clearout of the overnight dead so they just dump them out the entrance.
Some bees get tired on the flight during foraging and fail at the last moment to make the entrance so crash land on the grass, some get chilled at the end of the day and just shut down at the entrance, clinging on until warmed up again.

 

[Adam Bee]

Cool. That’s what I was hoping to hear.

At the starting stage one is always afraid to NOT be alert.

I understand the numbers are fractional and tiny. I had been ignoring the dead up to this point (1500/day rule) but the increasing number (admittedly from 1 to 3) of immobile bees, and the strange ejected unfinished bee, made me worry that I could be missing something.

As I need to inspect today, I really wanted to hear from someone experienced before going in, in case there was something I should keep an eye out for that was critical.

Thanks for the advice.