discarded pupae from my dwindling hive - deformed wing virus, or...?

[tjc1]

Found about 20 dead adult bees and pupae and parts of pupae on the bottom screen - I haven't seen this before. A couple were actually  barely alive. I did give them a frame of capped brood from another hive, and moved then into a nuc - but are they doomed? Also what about all the stores from this hive? are they safe to give to other hives if this one fails? You can click the zoom icon on the lower right when you follow the links and get a very close look.

[biggraham610]

My understanding, and Im new at this, is that there are some hygenic traits showing up with the discarding of affected pupae, and the dwv is the effect of Varroa destructor. Maybe do a sugar shake and get a mite count. I dont think the honey will be affected because the varroa do their dirt in the broodnest. Just my understanding, I will pass to the more educated. :chop:

[GSF]

Deformed wing virus by varroa mites? Have you smoked them lately? If so smoke could have been too hot. Or as said earlier, just some house cleaning going on.

[ScituateMA]

Have you treated them for varroa in fall ? It looks like you have a "high" varroa populatio  in your hive. You should do something for varroa soon before their population gets higher

[10framer]

was it particularly cold the night before?  are your bees expanding the brood chambers right now?  could just be they clustered and you just got a little chilled brood at the edges of the brood chamber.

[BeeMaster2]

I agree with 10framer. I see wings that did not develop but they may have been killed by the cold before they were expanded to full size. Probably left outside of the area the bees could cover on a cold night.
Jim

[buzzbee]

If the hive is dwindling there may not be enough bees to keep the brood warm. Thus discarded.

[tjc1]

Thanks, everyone. I was worried about there being too few bees to cover the brood with the chilly weather we've been having, but then there is very little brood to cover... I found a few more on the doorstep tonight. I added a pretty full frame of capped brood with nurse bees, and put a 23 watt bulb in an empty box below the nuc (which has a screened vent in the bottom). Not sure there were new eggs on that frame, but maybe they will raise a new queen. However, there have been some eggs all along - why haven't the bees raised a replacement if she is doing poorly?

In terms of varroa, this hive seemed to have almost no mites - I found one or two per week on the SBB sticky board since February.