A bad day at the association apiary

[gavin]

Thanks Mazza! Nice to see you here. The feedback via Graham in Perth from those wonderful people in the lab did mention starvation related to mite pressure as a reason for the symptoms. That now makes perfect sense. I was a little puzzled as the top brood box is quite heavy (I lifted it off tonight to apply Varroa medication) ... but a lack of healthy nurse bees to make the bee bread could explain things.

I plumped for Apistan which is something I haven't used for years. It should knock down enough Varroa to see it though this crisis, even if it isn't fully effective locally any more.

The colony alongside is mild-mannered and doesn't have a Varroa problem, so I'll be grafting some queens from that one.

Gavin

[Pete L]

Another thing that can be mistaken for EFB is neglected brood,when a queen is failing and laying a percentage of infertile eggs in worker cells and the workers do not feed them properly,neglect them. The only difference is the brood in neglected brood is of varying ages, unlike EFB where they are of the same age just before capping.

[gavin]

Many thanks for that Pete, and it is good to see you posting here. In the summer of 2009, when I was dashing about spreading fear and alarm in the countryside, the President of a neighbouring association had a frame with mushy larvae that had us convinced was EFB. Not so, just the product of a drone laying queen (or maybe a queenless colony). I don't remember whether or not the larvae were of different ages - perhaps there were just a few like that. It is odd how some colonies lose heart - one I had last summer that was severely attacked by wasps never really got its mojo back.

EFB does seem to affect the older larvae approaching full size but it also seems (on the evidence of that other thread with the photos) to kill very young larvae too.

[Derek Uchman]

Delighted that everything worked out fine, Gavin.

[gavin]

Me too, thanks Derek. I'll be using that kerfuffle as an excuse for the slow progress with queen raising next Saturday. It should be a good opportunity to show off the new apiary, hope you can come.

[gavin]

One little update. One of the pair of colonies has really nice mild bees that look Amm and didn't prepare to swarm at the drop of a hat unlike my own colonies. Definitely breeding material and the one I was about to graft from. But ... after the two inspections last Sunday and Monday it appears to be queenless. Larvae at the fat grub stage only, and a scattering of queen cells. That is a real pity - I can raise a few queens from the stock and will make sure that they provide drones for queen raising next year, but I really wanted the original queen too.

Maybe the queen was disturbed by the inspection and flew into the neighbouring colony? If she did I guess that she didn't survive the experience.