Weird wobbly cappings + bald brood

[BeekeeperDan]

Eyeman and Finnman,
I will have another look for chewed, discarded pupae when I next visit the quarantine apiary but I couldn't see any on my last visit (I was looking in front of the hive for dead or diseased bees). I have seen my bees remove drone and worker brood in this way before and there is usually some half-eaten paupae in some of the cells. I'll also see if I can do an image search on google to find similar pictures under VSH.


Finnman,
How cold does it get in Helsinki in the winter? I went to Ruka (Which is truly beautiful, lovely country and lovely people!) a few years ago and it was -40c with wind chill! I'm curious, do you have to feed your bees a lot before winter? Do you use polystyrene hives? Do you overwinter on double brood, single brood or brood and a half? Can heavy snow be a problem covering your hives?

 

[Finman]

Finnman,
How cold does it get in Helsinki in the winter? I went to Ruka (Which is truly beautiful, lovely country and lovely people!) a few years ago and it was -40c with wind chill! I'm curious, do you have to feed your bees a lot before winter? Do you use polystyrene hives? Do you overwinter on double brood, single brood or brood and a half? Can heavy snow be a problem covering your hives?[/QUOTE]

-10C is cold in Helsinki. Every two winter we do not have ice cover on the sea. 30 y ago ice cover was normal every year. Global warming.

I have used polyhives 30 years.

How many boxes in winter depends on the number of the brood frames in August.

On average I feed 20 kg/hive for winter. I do not need suplemental feeding in spring.

In these winters snow cover is usually 30 cm. Hives do better without snow cover.
.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Some bees just do that. Although you would do well to eliminate other causes, eg by checking mite load.