This is Erich from N.E. Washington State. I have a packaged colony installed April 15th. All appears to have been going well. Feeding frames of honey from two winter kill colonies. Population begining to grow. I have noticed the past week that they have been removing bees that have died or maybe not, but bees that appear to be fully developed but are still in the shape of the cell they were removed from. Looked to me like they were removed from capped cells and discarded. I haven't seen this before. This colony is the best I've seen at houskeeping. Entrance always clean by mid morning. This is my third year at so haven't seen many. I have not seen any sickly bees walking about, just the removed ones. My last inspection was April 29. I'm trying not to be to bothersome but am wondering if I'm missing out on some important learning opportunities by not looking in on them. The number of removed bees are about 20 to 50 a day. That is what I see, who knows how many are carried off.
Is there something I should look for when I do my next inspection? I looked closely at the removed bees but couldn't determine anything.
If I need to provide more info I will do so. Thank you in advance again.
Erich
Erich,
could be varroa, have you checked drone brood? Have you done a sugar shake? If no to one or the other I would do both. I had a hive recently that exhibited some of what you're describing albeit not quite the numbers you're mentioning but I would at least do a sugar shake to check for mites. Good luck!
They are showing hygenic behavior. The only question is if it's just lot of hygenic behavior or a situation that calls for a lot of hygenic behavior. I would check the mite drop from time to time to see what you drop naturally in 24 hours. If that number starts to skyrocket you need to decide what you are going to do about the Varroa.
Are you sure that the old frames you gave them were all honey and that there was no brood among it. If so they could be old brood that died with the old hive and the bees are just emptying the cells for re-use. Just another possibility.
Thank you's for the replys. Today I saw removed bees that weren't completely formed. still white and transparent. So that should rule out old brood from last year. I suspect varroa. I will do the sugar shake or drop test this weekend and then decide what to do. This will be my first time at this but I have been doing some reading of past posts and it doesn't sound too difficult. By the way, I'm using what I guess is old school hives with plain bottom boards. I like the sound of SSB's
Thank you again.
Erich