Queen reared with deformed wing virus

[Plenty of honey]

Dosent it suck when you get good larvae, grafted in to a good, strong queenless set up, drawn out the most beautiful cells. You get your nucs ready, they Hatch out well, only to find two have been born with deformed wing virus. They will never mate!
Am i the only one? interested to hear if anyone else had this problem.
I will now treat my cell builders during the spring and summer!! very frustrating!!! I know its not unusual but do varroa have a liking for queen cells or is it just bad luck? Obviously they prefer drone brood, i know that, what about queen cells???

 

[B+.]

interested to hear if anyone else had this problem.

I've never had this problem myself. Obviously, the queen takes the least time of all the castes to develop so they are the least attractive to a varroa mite to rear her family. If I might make a suggestion: be very careful to select only healthy, well nourished colonies to raise queens. There must have been an indication that there was a varroa problem in the colony before you started the cells.

This clip on the varroa life cycle might help you https://youtu.be/a2vg59Snt6c

 

[Michael Palmer]

I've never had this problem myself.

Nor have I

 

[gavin]

Queens in cells that have been chilled can have problems with wing development. After you trnsferred the cells to nucs could that have happened?

 

[Hivemaker.]

Queens in cells that have been chilled can have problems with wing development.

I agree, or even over heated... and in the last couple of days of development.

 

[Plenty of honey]

Thanks for that video Link, excellent. B+
So i am treating all my hives over the next two days. I favour the vaporised oxalic acid treatment. i usually do this in November in bloodless colonies, but i think there's a good evidence to do it twice, once now (post harvest which won't get them all) and once in bloodless colonies.
I didn't use a colonie noted for good varroa resistance when selecting one for queen rearing (first mistake)
I also didn't do mite control between queen rearing .(second mistake)

However its been an excellent year for mites, as its been a high turnover on worker bees, I suppose? My colonies were clean at the start of the year so i know that at least.
I only ran 1 cell builder five times, giving me about 200 queen cells. and i have only seen two DWV queens. so i suppose thats still low as a percentage. but still not desirable!!
I looked at the same queen i found 4 days ago, yesterday, and she's been killed or has died(basically disappeared). Is this something that other beekeepers dont see and they just assume that the queen failed of was killed on her mating flight. I shouldn't mess with the colonie for three weeks, but as we've had really bad weather i wanted to see if a, they had hatched and b, of any had managed to mate, which none had.
All food for thought!! but i was really surprised to see this. Perhaps it could be linked to minimal drone brood this time of year, and also much reduced laying by the queen due to our dearth!! varroa thus concentrating on anything thats game!! over nice fat drone larvae!
Will try and get a pic of the second queen, before she disappears.

 

[Plenty of honey]

Queens in cells that have been chilled can have problems with wing development. After you trnsferred the cells to nucs could that have happened?

Gavin Thanks, interesting . Yes quite possible, although i was very careful to leave them in the cell builder when i made the colonie queen right. so possible. it was crap weather!!

 

[Plenty of honey]

Queens in cells that have been chilled can have problems with wing development. After you trnsferred the cells to nucs could that have happened?

Gavin, just thinking, when are the wings formed ? would putting them in to a cold colonie on day 10 alter wing development? I was under the impression they developed earlier a few days earlier. I need to check metamorphosis chart!!

 

[B+.]

I only ran 1 cell builder five times, giving me about 200 queen cells.

Wow, thats a lot of cells out of one cell builder!

 

[Plenty of honey]

Wow, thats a lot of cells out of one cell builder!

Yes but i restock it with 8 frames of brood in between times. I thought this was normal!! I used the Mike Palmer method , He calls it the 10 + 10 method, i love it!! works great for me!! Thats my first attempt in my profile pic. Did a video too bit of fun. https://youtu.be/fc2E7KMUZsI

 

[gavin]

Yes, chilling (or overheating as HM suggested) on day 10 could cause malformed wings.

Workers expand their wings around day 18-19 so 10 days post-grafting for a queen is also about two days before the end of the cycle.

I've seen this myself this year.

 

[B+.]

Yes but i restock it with 8 frames of brood in between times.

OK. I understand what you're doing now. It wasn't clear from your original post.
I start with 18 Langstroth frames but you're on Dadant which are about 2" deeper than I use.

 

[Michael Palmer]

Yes but i restock it with 8 frames of brood in between times.

Don't forget that when you do that you're also stocking the colony with varroa mites by adding combs of emerging bee that surely have some amount of mites.

 

[Plenty of honey]

Don't forget that when you do that you're also stocking the colony with varroa mites by adding combs of emerging bee that surely have some amount of mites.

I wondered if that could be one of the reasons Mike, thanks!. re think time on Varroa management for next year me thinks!!! It still is a brilliant method!! Well I think it is!

 

[snelgrove]

enjoyed you film on utube, supers full in April, lucky here end of may

 

[Plenty of honey]

Yes, chilling (or overheating as HM suggested) on day 10 could cause malformed wings.

Workers expand their wings around day 18-19 so 10 days post-grafting for a queen is also about two days before the end of the cycle.

I've seen this myself this year.

I am going to do a mite count on my cell builder and compare this to other hives (Adjacent), the should give an indication if the DWV was a varroa based problem or a physical disorder due to temperature issues. If your right and it could be day 10 temperature hot or cold then yes, on my part it could be my fault as my cells were the last to go in to nucs. I dropped another 20 off to a guy i work with. Then hung around his apiaries, as you do, then did mine some 2 hrs later. My Flask that relies on a bolus of warm water, put in on transfer, may have been just too cool by the end of there day!! Another think to mull over this winter!! need temperature controlled transport!!!!!????

 

[Plenty of honey]

enjoyed you film on utube, supers full in April, lucky here end of may

It was an exceptional spring here, just luck!! it was a great feeling though!! loved it!!

 

[thebeeman]

I treat my cell builders around 3 times during the season with OV. I run the same cell builders all season introducing emerging brood frames every week.
So introducing mites with those frames.

So the only cells mites can use for there breeding cycle are the Queen cells not perfect for the mites life cycle but out of 100s there will be a few that enter the cells an cause damage.

 

[Plenty of honey]

I treat my cell builders around 3 times during the season with OV. I run the same cell builders all season introducing emerging brood frames every week.
So introducing mites with those frames.

So the only cells mites can use for there breeding cycle are the Queen cells not perfect for the mites life cycle but out of 100s there will be a few that enter the cells an cause damage.

Thanks for this. Do you see any increased mite drop compared to a non cell builder after treatment? I am definitely going to have to control varroa on a cycle with the cell builder, builder(s) next year. Great to find that other beekeepers are treating because of added pressure of possible extra varroa added in with the brood.

 

[thebeeman]

There is an increase in drop after every treatment. Compared to a non treated cell builder the acceptance is higher and queen seem to be slightly larger and there is more royal jelly in the cells. Next season i will be weighing newly emerged Queens.