What's this on the varroa board?

[Bridget]

Treated with apistan last Monday, checked board today. No varroa but what's the little white things. Looks like eggs? Some were lying down and some standing up. When I squished one it went it liquid. I checked there was no brood before I treated. Took the last super off last week. Any ideas?1827


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[Ruary]

Wax moth eggs/larva???

[gavin]

Wax moth eggs/larva???

Don't think so Ruary.

Greater and lesser wax moth eggs are laid in batches and are oval in shape rather than elongated.

http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/waxmothlifecycle.html

Woodlouse eggs are carried around by their mum. Earwig eggs are also laid in batches and cared for. Don't look like mollusc eggs.

[Jon]

They look pretty much like something came out the back end of a queen bee.

[Bridget]

Oh dear . Could she lay those through the mesh? I suppose she could have pushed her tail end enough down through the mesh.


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[gavin]

They do look like eggs, don't they. Can't be though - unless workers are picking them out and dropping them where some stick, head-first, on the corrrex.

Guess it must be some critter from the great outdoors spotting a quiet place in an appropriate cavity to lay some eggs.

Can't see a queen laying eggs with tail pointing down rather than up? Is the hive jam-packed full?

[Adam]

From the pattern - or lack of it, they don't look like they have been laid on the varroa floor - the position looks more like they were dropped from above?

(Diploid drone eggs although I thought that they were eaten rather than dropped?)

[gavin]

Or - especially if the bees have seen the weather forecast for later this coming week - worker eggs? Ditto on eggs becoming food, but who really knows? It is impossible to see as it all happens so quickly.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Could the fact that Bridget added Apistan strips last Monday have induced the bees to remove eggs?
Kitta

[Adam]

Could the fact that Bridget added Apistan strips last Monday have induced the bees to remove eggs?
Kitta

I'd wondered about that - I've never used Apistan so don't know what effect it has.

[Jon]

Apistan affects bee behaviour much less than any of the Thymol based products. Mine always used to totally ignore it.

[The Drone Ranger]

Could the fact that Bridget added Apistan strips last Monday have induced the bees to remove eggs?
Kitta

Hi Kitta
Apistan is one of the treatments that has the least affect on the bees so I think thats unlikely
I can't see the clearly enough but they probably are not eggs or bee larva

[Mellifera Crofter]

... When I squished one it went liquid. ...



...
I can't see the clearly enough but they probably are not eggs or bee larva

Maybe somebody who does a lot of grafting (Jon?) should tell us if squished bee eggs go liquid.
Kitta

[Jon]

I can't recollect ever squishing a bee egg but I now have an overwhelming urge to find and squash one!
The grafting is done with small larvae rather than eggs and I have made porridge with the odd larva.
Photos like that one showing eggs on the tray have been posted before, maybe on one of the other forums.
I can't remember if anyone gave a definitive answer.
I remember we had a speaker at an association meeting a few years ago who brought in tray debris including eggs to a meeting.
He didn't know what had produced the eggs.

Ruary usually knows what he is talking about so I would not rule out the wax moth explanation.

[drumgerry]

Could they be house fly/bluebottle eggs I wonder? Certainly seen a resurgence of them in the last week or two with the soon to be over warm weather and a few of them hanging about the hives

[Mellifera Crofter]

So, it's a mystery.
K

[Bridget]

Well Kitta the bee house was full of flies today so maybe that's where the eggs come from. Anyway have other things on my mind now ...freezer malfunction so have been cooking up about 40 lbs of defrosted pork from our pigs, then part of a stone dyke falls down and tonight the chimney goes on fire. That's three things then so hoping for a more peaceful weekend.


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[Mellifera Crofter]

Trouble usually arrives altogether. I hope the freezer is fixed soon. The stone wall will probably take quite a bit longer.

[keith pierce]

If you copy the photo to your pictures and then zoom in, you will see that they are normal eggs. Some of them have 3 stuck together, like as if the queen was walking around with nowhere for her to lay and the eggs kept oozing out of her till they fell off and through the mesh floor

[Ruary]

Ruary usually knows what he is talking about so I would not rule out the wax moth explanation. Well I am not certain what the eggs are/were but varroa boards are notorious for producing wax moth so that is what I plumped for.

[keith pierce]

Well I am not certain what the eggs are/were but varroa boards are notorious for producing wax moth so that is what I plumped for.
Well Ruary, sadly to say this time you are wrong. As you can see the clean inspection board was only inserted in the previous few days and their is very little hive debris on it. Wax moths need a build up of floor debris before they can lay their eggs or their larva will not survive. Plus if you look at the shape of the wax moths eggs in the photos you will see that they are oval in shape. I am still sticking with eggs from the queen. Laying workers are ruled out as well.

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/7175/zi94.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/401/zi94.jpg/)

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http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/9118/em6u.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/713/em6u.jpg/)

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http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/5198/qrjy.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/401/qrjy.jpg/)

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[The Drone Ranger]

could a mouse have been eating a Bounty bar ?

[Ruary]

Well Ruary, sadly to say this time you are wrong.

I never claimed to be infallible and was responding to Jon's comment inpost 14.

I'm sorry if my suggestion offended you.

[Mellifera Crofter]

... I'm sorry if my suggestion offended you.
No, no! I can't speak for Keith, but I feel sure that's not how he meant it. I found all these suggestions really interesting. Kitta

[The Drone Ranger]

1829
I'm confident a DNA test will confirm

[keith pierce]

I never claimed to be infallible and was responding to Jon's comment inpost 14.

I'm sorry if my suggestion offended you.

No offence meant and no offence taken.

[The Drone Ranger]

When you say interesting Kitta I take that to mean my mouse suggestion has nosedived out of contention
Deeply deeply offended :)

[Mellifera Crofter]

Mus confecticus. Yes, it's far too sweet to litter a Varroa tray.
Kitta