Quick dead outs by varroa

[Finman]

-
Today I went to look a guy, to whom me and my friend sold 2 beehives in August.
I called to him that I have oxalic acid and do he want the treatment.

Ok, we opened the hives and they were empty. Another had cupfull of bees and the queen. Another had a spoolfull of bees.

There were no dead bees on floor. As empty as empty is.

Boath hives had large brood areas in frames where were uncapped brood and partly emerged bees and what ever.

The brood was chilled becasue colony did not have nurser bees enough in September.


- Did we sold those contaminated hives?

- Why original hive owner does not have those symptoms in her yard?

- Why I did not noticed any mites even if I see mites quite well in hives?

2 months and hives were dead after selling. 8 frame colonies.

***********

I have no else explanation to the phenomenon but boath hives have robbed in new surrounding wild hives which have had a fat mite population

Dead out did not took 2 years. It took 2 months.

The beekeeper had tried to take a wild colony from chimney in August 1 km far away.
2 years ago he got 6 swarms to his garden. One days there were 3 separate swarms in same apple tree.

What I try tell, there are wild colonies in surrounding village. But no beekeepers.


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What can we do with these cases? - At least I do not know how to prevent this to happen.

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[Heather]

Starvation swarm??

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

I'm not saying it's CCD, but it sounds similar.

 

[yeogi75]

hi finnman
for some reason forage bees have not returned possibly pesticide poisoning effecting bee brain to get back to hive
or wasp or hornet attack whilst out foraging
plesase keep us informed

 

[Finman]

hi finnman
for some reason forage bees have not returned possibly pesticide poisoning effecting bee brain to get back to hive
or wasp or hornet attack whilst out foraging
plesase keep us informed

Forager bees die before clustering naturally. No one use pestisides any more in autumn.
Some poison came into my mind first. Like poison in nearby drinkin pools, but the queen was alive and it eates huge amounts per day.

This summer we had no wasps

 

[Finman]

Starvation swarm??

Never heard about that.
We had exceptional honey dew flow at the end of summer and hives got half of their winter food from honey dew.

.

.

 

[yeogi75]

bees head first in coomb dead + starvation
no dead bees in hive no brood hatching + check sealed coomb for dead bees varroa
could be feral hives robbing out hives and over infection of varroa from the feral hives

 

[Chris B]

Is the guy a new beekeeper? Did he do something stupid like moving the hives across the apiary? It sounds too severe to be varroa alone.

 

[Finman]

-
The hives are in very same site where I brought them in August.

 

[alldigging]

Photos of inside and outside of the hive including site location.

Have you visited the site before now?

How much experience has this beekeeper? You say he's collected swarms - how are his other bees.

Does he have angry neighbours with a bin full of empty fly spray cans?

When did he last look at them? When did they stop being active?

 

[Chris Luck]

Is the guy a new beekeeper? Did he do something stupid like moving the hives across the apiary? It sounds too severe to be varroa alone.

+1

Even with no new brood a full hive with stores can't die out completely in a couple of months unless there is poison or disease, not mites, mites aren't disease. A colony that goes Q- for whatever reason here in Sept / Oct will still have bees in April / May.

Chris

 

[Finman]

.
After thinking and thinking.

I looked hives at the beginning of September, and another hive was normal. Another hive had lost half of its size.

The better hive had harvested honey dew so much that there were brood and capped honey.
The weaker hive was not able to store honey dew .

But what ever reason, I wonder where the bees disappeared so fast. Large amount of chilled brood was inside the hive.


One case I understand but 2/2 is a problem. When thinking ...I believe that some poison or chemical in drinking water is possible.

I had 3 six box hives up to September 2 km away these hives, and what I saw there was 20-30 kg honey dew yield.

.

 

[Tom Bick]

If it was poison then how do you explain the absence of dead bees in the hive, the nurse and very young bees? where have they gone?

 

[Chris Luck]

If it was poison then how do you explain the absence of dead bees in the hive, the nurse and very young bees? where have they gone?

Errrr, could they have died elsewhere? Perhaps didn't even return?

Chris

 

[REDWOOD]

When you said sold 2 beehives was it a colony on frames or the whole hive as the bees could have been put into his hives that were infected with something.

 

[Tom Bick]

Errrr, could they have died elsewhere? Perhaps didn't even return?

Chris

Yes obvious but the nurse and very young bees?

 

[Hivemaker.]

If it was poison then how do you explain the absence of dead bees in the hive, the nurse and very young bees? where have they gone?

I have had problems with spray poisoning in the past, in two cases there were piles of dead bees in the hive and below the entrance, in another suspected poisoning case involving thirty two hives, there were no dead bees in or around the hives, just very young bees and the queen left.

This sounds like it could be caused by paralyses, unusual to be in both hives i would think though, have had this on the odd occasion over the years, sometimes big strong double brood colony,plus supers, being reduced to one or two frames of bees, low varroa, and no other colony in the apiary infected, lots of feeble bees of all ages crawling around on the ground over a wide area, these are soon cleared up by bee eating critters though.

 

[yeogi75]

how far from your apery were they sited , thinking foraging bees returned home and left hive with no foragers , brood chilled no more bees

 

[Scutellator]

There were no dead bees on floor. As empty as empty is.

Boath hives had large brood areas in frames where were uncapped brood and partly emerged bees and what ever.

The brood was chilled becasue colony did not have nurser bees enough in September.


SO, the CCD finally reached your country too.

In the past several years this is a very common situation in Bulgaria.

There seems that the main cause is viruses (they change their DNA very fast), NOT NEONICS, and today is just not enough to keep the varroa mites below the 1% threshold ( remember your suspicion about pesticide contamination in the honey from some of your dead hives during the winter and the poor brood patern in some of the hives that had received it?)

Anyway, i believe there is another pathogen involved as well - trypanosomes?

Randy Oliver explains the causes of CCD in about 18 articles, better start reading.

 

[Norton]

This is probably absconding. The bees have probably joined an absconding swarm.
There is a discussion about this on a French list at the moment.