No brood

troutstalker2 · September 21, 2009, 02:50:03 PM

Went to check on a hive that was doing very well. Went into the brood box and no brood. I could not find the queen if she is still there. There are plenty of stores, everything else seems fine except for having quit a few shb. Might she have just stopped laying during this last month? The population was still good, but I'm concerned because its getting late in the year. The hive was a split and built up nicely this summer (my first buckfast queen) and had high hopes for the spring.
Any Ideas?

Thanks in advance, David

sc-bee · September 21, 2009, 03:24:10 PM

Could be cutting back. Do you have any open brood w/eggs to add from another hive to see if they start a cell.

Most of my hives are bring in pollen and very brood heavy. She's probably still there just hard to spot.

My hives with any Russian mix have cut way back compared to the others. I had one hive I thought was queenless. I spotted the queen on the last frame. Very little brood, finally spotted a few eggs. She is a supercede from a Goldline PBA (Russian mix). Do Buckfast have any Russian. Maybe she has cut back.

troutstalker2 · September 21, 2009, 04:07:42 PM

No open brood, no eggs. Didn't have a lot of time to search for her. Will do a better search in a couple of days, But no sign of anything starting up in the way of brood. I don't think that is a good sign, But maybe she just shut down for lack of anything coming in.

jclark96 · September 21, 2009, 06:54:53 PM

How many SHB are in there? The Beetles could be eating the eggs, or laying eggs in the cells forcing the bees to clean them out. Go to battle with the SHB.

troutstalker2 · September 21, 2009, 07:08:44 PM

There has been alot more shb in general this year because of the rain. Ill get on it. I did do a soil drench about 5 weeks ago, didn't seem to help much though.

mswartfager · September 22, 2009, 09:12:18 AM

David,

I had a "no brood" problem a couple weeks ago. Absolutely no eggs, larva...nothing. Although, I did have multiple capped queen cells. I also posted on here looking for answers. I watched the entrance a couple days later and saw lots of pollen going in. I opened it up and saw lots of eggs! The queen cells were all opened. Then, right before I closed it back up, the queen popped her head up (seemed like she was just showing me she was there). I also got some advice about combining hives w/newspaper this late in the season, but (luckily) I didn't have to go that route (yet). Now, I hope that hive gets up and running well before winter. Good luck.

Mark

sc-bee · September 22, 2009, 09:20:31 AM

>There are plenty of stores, everything else seems fine except for having quit a few shb.
>How many SHB are in there? The Beetles could be eating the eggs, or laying eggs in the cells forcing the bees to clean them out. Go to battle with the SHB.

How many are quite a few? The southern beekeeper has to come to reality that they are going to see a few shb until the remedy is found. Quite is the key word here ---- 6, 10, 12, 50? As troutstalker said if the hive gets too many shb, the colony will weaken, the queen either cuts back or the bees begin to tear down cells trying to clean out the shb. Depending on the hygienic behavior of the bees they may clean and tear down the comb or not.

This is a frame out of what was once a strong nuc, that was full of brood. Two weeks later on next inspection torn down comb:

If not seeing shb in the comb area and just seeing them at the top bars,
it most likely is not an shb issue but another. But be careful of the shb they will prey on a colony weaken from other issues.

troutstalker2 · September 22, 2009, 01:11:17 PM

NO sign of shb larva and no comb deterioration yet. I would guess I saw 30-40 beetles