something wrong with the colony

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sahtlinurk

House Bee
Joined
Apr 16, 2009
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Location
uk, Abingdon
Hive Type
14x12
Number of Hives
12
Good morning to all,

seven out of ten frames have been filled with pollen, all the best laying space. I found little bit of brood on one frame - some eggs and larvae. why have they stored the pollen that way? :confused:
I treated this colony with Apiguard in May and after this treatment everything started to go downhill with them.

Lauri
 
Presumably a bad varroah infestation to deal with to be treating in May. That would not be good for a start.

I have noticed in the past that the queen stopped laying when treated early like that. Don't know why. It caught me out as I only had a couple of colonies and neither was strong! Put me off Apiguard (but not a lot of alternatives, what with resistant mites). I thought it strange but have had no problems with late summer applications.

May now need some hatching brood from your other colonies to help with the hive chores to get it going again. Otherwise, another queen?

Regards, RAB
 
Apiguard is a thymol treament and thymol has the effect of putting queens off lay for a while ??. Probably not as noticeable late in the season when queenie is slowing down anyway!

John Wilkinson
 
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I saw something similar and then I realised the queen was laying above the excluder and the bees had decided to store honey and pollen below. If you saw eggs obviously it is something else.
 
it was an early swarm i captured, that's why the treatment. it had some eggs already when placed the Apiguard in the hive. didn't treat other colonies and they are doing fine.

Lauri
 
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