Dead Brood

[honeylover]

I caught a colony at the last moment when it was about to collapse from starvation. The Queen looked very slim and all bees showed the typical signs of lethargy, I sprayed them with sugar water and fed them and they appeared to recover. However I notice there are quite a few patches of dead brood. After 'recovering' the Q is not laying properly, very, very slow and life is not really returning to the colony. The varroa count is zero to one.
My questions are :
How does the presence of dead brood affect the Q's laying ?
Should I remove the dead brood; there is some sporadic laying in between ?
I am pretty much of the opinion that the Q is not going to fully recover, I think she has been terminally damaged by starvation, she is a 2016 from a local strain, I feel I should cull her, am I correct ?

Thanks in anticipation.

M

[fatshark]

At this stage in my part of the world (Fife) I'm uniting weak colonies to reduce the number of strong colonies I have to feed up for the winter. If you have a queen barely laying I'd be tempted to cut your losses.

If the colony wasn't out and busy yesterday (I was in the Ullapool area and it was a lovely day) then all is not right.

I don't know if dead - presumably unsealed - brood inhibits the queen. If you don't want to cull her and unite, perhaps add a frame of drawn comb, move the dead brood to the sides and see if she picks up?

[fatshark]

At this stage in my part of the world (Fife) I'm uniting weak colonies to reduce the number of strong colonies I have to feed up for the winter. If you have a queen barely laying I'd be tempted to cut your losses.

If the colony wasn't out and busy yesterday (I was in the Ullapool area and it was a lovely day) then all is not right.

I don't know if dead - presumably unsealed - brood inhibits the queen. If you don't want to cull her and unite, perhaps add a frame of drawn comb, move the dead brood to the sides and see if she picks up?

[Mellifera Crofter]

I've rescued an almost-dead colony earlier in the summer. I marked that I have to feed them, and somehow did not do it! Like you, I immediately dribbled some syrup over them, and then went to the kitchen to prepare some thin syrup to spray over them, and I also poured syrup directly into empty combs, and added a rapid feeder. It was still cold, so I moved the colony to warmth and kept them indoors for a day.

They were in an Abelo polystyrene hive to which I've added even more insulation above the crown board.

So, if you do want to keep the queen, my colony is fine now and the queen is fully recovered. You may find the same. I think the queen takes into account how many helpers she has - and as a lot of them are dead, she might have reduced her laying.

Kitta

[The Drone Ranger]

I have picked up nearly dead bees off the kitchen windowsil gave them a little honey and an hour later they fly off recovered
I put some in the freezer for 24 hours for a microscopy course and the next day they revived and flew round the training room
They are tough little blighters queen included

[honeylover]

Thanks to everyone for their input, its getting on a bit in the season, maybe have a go at moving the dead brood to the outside positions of the nuc and see what happens.

M