Sad Loss!

[gavin]

Quite right WPC though I don't usually bother.

This shows some of those freshly opened cells with a rough rim. You can often find some in a dead colony.

The Varroa faeces are right in the back top corner, and you can see some here.

G.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I've looked at samples from dead colonies in Scotland in the last few years and found one with Nosema in about 20 apiaries looked at.

I really hope Scotland remains fairly nosema free,or any other place that does not have it,but i have checked apairys big and small in the past, and found every colony to have nosema.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

springers,
Did you treat with thymol in the late summer as a varroa treatment? Does the brood chamber have any stores in it or is it empty with stores only in the super? do you have a queen excluder on the brood chamber? Is it the original queen or one much younger?

 

[springers]

Hello Hebeegeebee
The brood box had stores left in the outer 4 frames, looks like they didn't venture out to them, the super was full, the Q ex was still on, there were bees in cells in 2 areas of the centre frames about 4" apart. We didn't use apiguard which I now think was our biggest mistake. The hatching bees I examined didn't appear to have white varroa droppings, but were small and the wings didn't look too good. The queen was last years as we took a nuc with the original one. We tested some with the micro scope for nosema but couldn't see any. OA at Xmas.