# foulbrood in winter dead out



## johnbeejohn (Jun 30, 2013)

had ten nucs in a yard all died over winter plenty of honey in all that wasnt touched trying to figure out what happened to them prolly mites just trying to eliminate things some of the caped brood has holes in them and i would not say they are sunken in but they are not bubbled out like a fresh healthy cell of capped brood and ipulled severel out with a stick did not stretch out like u see in pictures of hive that are ALIVe and have foulbrood in a dead out would it still stretch out like you see in the pictures?? and i tried to smell the stick and they stink obvisouly like you would expect dead rotting things to smell but is this the foulbrood smell?? was not a very bad smell almost a sweet spoiled smell can any one help me? also can smell no foul odors when just lifting up inner cover and taking a wiff


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

johnbeejohn said:


> trying to figure out what happened to them prolly mites


There must be a reason you are suspecting mites.


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## johnbeejohn (Jun 30, 2013)

well they had mites in the fall theated with MAQS dont think they worked to well and a fellow beek that i help said thats what his money is on very low number of bees left in most of dead outs


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Do you see any white specks (mite feces) in the brood cells? Any dead bees with deformed wings?


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

Mike Gillmore said:


> Do you see any white specks (mite feces) in the brood cells? Any dead bees with deformed wings?


http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?294749-Picture-of-mite-feces


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## johnbeejohn (Jun 30, 2013)

no deformed wimgs but that is not a def with mites right? will look for mite poop today thanks let u kno


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

typically you will see AFB scale left behind, especially in a dead out.


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## Riskybizz (Mar 12, 2010)

> typically you will see AFB scale left behind, especially in a dead out. 

Ian do you see a lot of AFB in your area? Its not really "typical" here at all.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

No, I did not say its typical here...

I said typically you will see scale left behind in infected equipment, especially found in a dead hive due to AFB. Find a good beekeeping book, they have good pictures for reference


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## BeeRoger (Sep 26, 2012)

It sounds like the hive died while trying to keep brood warm. Last of the capped brood still left, and all of the uncapped brood was eaten in an attempt to survive. Maybe the live bees were uncapping brood to cannibalize for energy in a last ditch effort to survive. Bees did not move to other honey stores while trying to keep brood warm. I saw the same thing yesterday while cleaning up deadouts. Mine were out of honey, with a small patch of brood. My dead larvae looked like a baby bees but were black, not stringy or turned to mush yet. These hives have been dead less than 3 weeks with temps below freezing most if not all of the time.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>would it still stretch out like you see in the pictures?? 

If it's still liquid, yes it will.


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## honeydrunkapiaries (Oct 16, 2013)

Its pretty normal to see in a mite dead out, the brood gets cold and the bees might try to uncap it. The brood then dies and gets all gross looking. Id place bets that is what it is. Had a similar panic out session when I went to investigate some of my dead outs, and it was just mite dead out.


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## johnbeejohn (Jun 30, 2013)

thank you all not AFB


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