# Queen troubles in September



## Makin' Honey (Sep 13, 2010)

Several beekeepers here in the Southeast are reporting queenless hives, supersedure of queens and even some swarms here in September, any ideas? Are there others with the same problems?

The bees are basically in good shape. Most of us treated our hives for mites in July or August using mostly Hopguard or Apivar and a few using MAQS. Most of the hives started with new queens in the spring. There is very little honey produced here after June. We will have a little now with goldenrod but nothing much to count on. This has not been a problem in the past years. We have not changed the maintenance of our hives much over the last few years. There does not seem to be a bad hive beetle problem either.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Is it possible that the first noticed effect of sub lethal pesticide levels is queenless/supercedures? It would be logical since the queen has the highest metabolism, and would accumulate levels faster than nurse bees.

Are they really swarms, or absconding?

Crazy Roland


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## Makin' Honey (Sep 13, 2010)

I have had no swarming. I ask those that have if it was absconding because of small hive beetle? They said no problem with beetles. It is all so strange to me....A swarm this time of year is like sure death!


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

I ask about the swarm or abscond because we hypothesize that sub-lethal doses can decrease the "stinky feet" of the queen, and that the bees simply leave the hive for another hive with a stinkier queen to increase their chances of being in a hive that survives the winter. 

Crazy Roland


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

I have seen 8 swarms about the size of an 5x8 file card since the middle of August. I can't locate the colony or colonies that are casting them. The only colony that has queen cells that have emerged is a 10 frame nuc that still has it's marked June queen. Most of the cells are about chewed down, none look fresh. I have a small swarm in my water meter box that I found today. They will get the soap solution about dark tonight.

There is little agriculture, row crops, in this area. There is mostly private gardens and pasture lands, so there is little chemical use. I think the small swarms in late summer is either mite driven or African genes in some of our bees. Is the queen pheromone problem you speak of from your line or commercially produced queens?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Roland said:


> Is it possible that the first noticed effect of sub lethal pesticide levels is queenless/supercedures? It would be logical since the queen has the highest metabolism, and would accumulate levels faster than nurse bees.
> 
> Are they really swarms, or absconding?
> 
> Crazy Roland


Sub lethal meaning what? Is this in the back of all of our minds because we are being told this over and over... Or is it actually happening? 
Sub lethal , means accumulation of some sort, accumulation is measurable. Or is it the un-measurable phantom exposure from "Chem" that they are telling us that is reducing the fitness in our queens. ?


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

AR - we have new package queens, new Strachan NWC queens, and queens from our own bees. There seems to be a correlation with geography, and nothing else.

Ian - sub-lethal meaning an effect of pesticides that does not kill the bees, but rather shortens their life or degrades their performance. We approached this problem with the assumption that we where to blame for the problems, but when most of the hives make a 20 lb average, but a couple of "test" hives outside our territory make over 120, you begin to wonder. Is it a coincidence that the spray plane the test area crashed late last year, and has not been seen this year?

Accumulation is measurable, but are we looking for the right chemicals? If this is a 4 month accumulation, I would not expect to find much of the original chemical culprit, but would expect to find it's metabolic degradation product. Or maybe we have enough neonicitinoids in the soil from corn that the next crop of alfalfa is toxic. I do not know, and at 332 dollars a lab test, I am not wealthy enough to find out.

Crazy Roland


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

But there is a lot of people in organization hornier than heck to find even a trace of measurable accumulation ... And finding that accumulation so small that their tech equipment does not measure it... Unless it's rounded to approximates... 

Roland, my crop was the biggest I have ever pulled in this year, and I live with neonic on just about 75% of the fields around here. If it's causing degregation in the queens, why do I have massive hives along side the failures? 
And why are all the ****tail of Chem being put into our hives completely overlooked in this. If anyone wants to find residue of chemical and potential exposure to the queen , look on the wax she walks every day. Chemicals in there we know harms the drones and queen development

Of course we got to look at ourselves, first


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## Makin' Honey (Sep 13, 2010)

Most of the beekeepers that are having the queen trouble keep their bees year round in north Georgia where farming is only about 5% use of the land so pesticides would seem to be very low problem. I do migrate my hives to south Georgia and other places where the land is 90% farmed. Keeping my bees on any kind of a nectar flow thru July and August makes a huge difference in how good my hives look in the late fall and winter. The trade off is having my hives in the high farm areas among the neonics but so far it is well worth it. In the old days with the old class of pesticides I would keep my bee at least a mile from cotton and soybeans to keep them from being wiped out from insecticide spray. Now days I have bee yards next to the fields without problem. Pesticides cause trouble but to me not like they used to.

AR I'm glad you mentioned African genes. Does any one know if late summer or fall swarming is a trait of the African bees? Or is late summer or fall supersedure a trait of African genes? 

This spring two horses were put in a pasture by mistake where I had about 60 hives of bees. It was sad, the horses got to messing with my bees and got killed by the bees. Interesting the farmer keeps his bulls in this same pasture and even at the time of the horse kill the bulls were not hurt by the bees. The Dept. of Agriculture come and took samples of my bees, tested them and found they are 2% African genes. So is that enough African to cause queen trouble?


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Makin' Honey said:


> Most of the beekeepers that are having the queen trouble keep their bees year round in north Georgia where farming is only about 5% use of the land so pesticides would seem to be very low problem. I do migrate my hives to south Georgia and other places where the land is 90% farmed. Keeping my bees on any kind of a nectar flow thru July and August makes a huge difference in how good my hives look in the late fall and winter. The trade off is having my hives in the high farm areas among the neonics but so far it is well worth it.


I agree. Barring a major pesticide event, good late summer flows+good mite control=strong fall hive strength almost without exception.


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## bentonbee (Jan 31, 2007)

I wonder, Ian, with your evidence here, are we looking at the wrong thing? Could it be a fungicide or something like that, not related to a neonic that is causing the bees to get sick???? 
This year I noticed something I had never seen my observation hive do before, (mid September when it happened) I came in the room just in time to see them scurrying faster than I have ever seen bees move, and they were absconding (leaving the observation hive structure). There were no queen cells at all in the hive. NONE. I have also wondered if we have some africanized bee genetics in just about all our bees now? I think africanized bees just abscond with no queen cells????


Roland said:


> AR - we have new package queens, new Strachan NWC queens, and queens from our own bees. There seems to be a correlation with geography, and nothing else.
> 
> Ian - sub-lethal meaning an effect of pesticides that does not kill the bees, but rather shortens their life or degrades their performance. We approached this problem with the assumption that we where to blame for the problems, but when most of the hives make a 20 lb average, but a couple of "test" hives outside our territory make over 120, you begin to wonder. Is it a coincidence that the spray plane the test area crashed late last year, and has not been seen this year?
> 
> ...


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

I have no evidence. That's the problem here , nobody does. We are being told our evidence... We all know there is a problem, Chem being part of it. Will our issues disappear when farmers are forced to quit using neonics? I certainly hope so !


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

If they don't , we will be accused of "crying wolf". Be careful of what you wish for.

Crazy Roiand


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Yup. It's in our best interests to figure this out, and not let the wolves lead the sheep to diner


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

Ian said:


> Sub lethal meaning what? Is this in the back of all of our minds because we are being told this over and over... Or is it actually happening?
> Sub lethal , means accumulation of some sort, accumulation is measurable. Or is it the un-measurable phantom exposure from "Chem" that they are telling us that is reducing the fitness in our queens. ?


At the EAS conference in Guelph, Nigel Raine presented some of his research on the sub-lethal effects of neonics on bumblebees. The video below sums up some of it. Basically, colonies that were exposed sent out more workers to forage than non-exposed colonies. Fewer of the worker came back and the ones that did brought back less pollen. Exposed bumblebee colonies overall produced far fewer reproductives (queens and drones). Foragers from exposed colonies also worked different flowers than unexposed colonies - it wasn't clear if these were inferior choices or just different choices.


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

Roland said:


> If they don't , we will be accused of "crying wolf". Be careful of what you wish for.
> 
> Crazy Roiand


This is a major concern. Also if not neonics then what? Will the replacement product(s) be worse?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Adam I need you to find me a study showing me there is traces of neonic in pollen and nectar. This is the important part. How is that chem getting into the bees. And if not, where is that exposure coming from


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

Ian said:


> Adam I need you to find me a study showing me there is traces of neonic in pollen and nectar. This is the important part. How is that chem getting into the bees. And if not, where is that exposure coming from


I am sure there are better options out there, but here's one - unfortunately you have to subscribe/purchase the whole study.

Article:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v521/n7550/full/nature14420.html#figures

Table:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v521/n7550/fig_tab/nature14420_T1.html


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

The ng measurements they provide on assuming sunflower treatment seeds, how does that number compare to the exposure measured out in the bumblebee study?


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

To the original poster, is there a common source for the queens in those hives? A group purchase of packages or nucs?


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## bentonbee (Jan 31, 2007)

Ian said:


> Yup. It's in our best interests to figure this out, and not let the wolves lead the sheep to diner


Haven't they outlawed neonics in Europe? If so are they having the same problems we do? I think they have varroa mites there.


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

Ian said:


> The ng measurements they provide on assuming sunflower treatment seeds, how does that number compare to the exposure measured out in the bumblebee study?


I'm not sure. Nigel described the bumblebee exposure as "field realistic".


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Benton, it was a 2 year ban I believe, this being the second year, but they are quite persistent, wouldn't surprise me if they got detected in plants growing in the area for years to come.


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## bentonbee (Jan 31, 2007)

JRG13 you said- "wouldn't surprise me if they got detected in plants growing in the area for years to come. " you are right, I had not thought of that.
Mike


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

The ban might have been extended, I think it was up for a vote, never heard what happened.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

zhiv9 said:


> I'm not sure. Nigel described the bumblebee exposure as "field realistic".


What is field realistic? **** I hate this issue... So many self interests muddying the waters nobody can really see what's going on.


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

Ian said:


> What is field realistic? **** I hate this issue... So many self interests muddying the waters nobody can really see what's going on.


10 parts per billion:

http://www.ontariobee.com/sites/ontariobee.com/files/pesticidesandbeesNaturepaper2012-1.pdf


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## Makin' Honey (Sep 13, 2010)

beemandan said:


> To the original poster, is there a common source for the queens in those hives? A group purchase of packages or nucs?


Yes there is for some but not all.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Field realistic based on what? Didn't they just choose an arbitrary testing number? 
This snippet from the following link to a 2011 survey by APHIS......

New to the survey this year was a pilot pollen pesticide survey where a minimum of 3 grams of pollen was collected from brood frames that was tested for 174 known pesticides.
The pollen was collected from the same composite 8 colonies undergoing the standard survey sampling and sent to the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) in Gastonia, NC for analysis. This pilot pesticide survey focused on 11 states: Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin. We received 99 samples from these states and of the 174 possible pesticides, only 35 were detected.

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_he...ees/downloads/2011_National_Survey_Report.pdf

7.1% of samples contained Cyalothrin and 9.1% contained Imadacloprid at a lod of 1 ppb 
Mine was one of the 99 samplings and my results were negative.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

10 ppb, 6-20 ng mg, field realistic, 

Adam what pollen source were these samples taken from? 

Where as Jim referenced 10% of random samples reporting 1 ppb .

Definition of field realistic??


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

Ian said:


> 10 ppb, 6-20 ng mg, field realistic,
> 
> Adam what pollen source were these samples taken from?
> 
> ...


If you read the paper I linked to, they reference two studies for the "field realistic dosage". One for nectar and one for pollen:

Cresswell, J. E. A meta-analysis of experiments testing the effects of a
neonicotinoid insecticide (Imidacloprid) on honey bees. Ecotoxicology 20,
149–157 (2011).

"Chauzat, M. P. et al. A survey of pesticide residues in pollen loads collected by
honey bees in France. J. Econ. Entomol. 99, 253–262 (2006)."


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

I did read what was available, I keep stalling on the reoccurring references to ; 
concentrations that COULD approximate field-level exposure 

I don't want to know what could approximate, I want to know what is found. 
For example, a reference stating ; 10% of the samples show 1 ppb

In the study you reference, 10 ppb concentrations that could approximate field-level exposure, turns into "field realistic "
How so?

Any rate, ... If you feel this study warrants restrictions on neonic use, so be it.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

If neonics are pulled off the shelf, I don't really care in regards to our crop farm... As we own a high clear and we have already prepared and put together a foliage strategy to replace the seed treatment. What I do care about is the health of my hives. 
Take that study referenced here by Adam, replace the toxin with any other type on the market and duplicate the results. The only difference will be the residual toxin levels in that study will not be exaggerated as they are now. We will be dealing with actuals. 

So then the next campaign starts, then on to GMO... Then fungicide... 

With all these studies out there it's a wonder we are only experiencing acute problems and not out right operational collapse


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

Ian said:


> Any rate, ... If you feel this study warrants restrictions on neonic use, so be it.


I didn't say that. You asked for information on sub-lethal effects. I provided some. I completely agree with you that we shouldn't be banning or restricting based on public/media pressure. We should be employing the precautionary principle and making decisions based on good science. We should also be publicly funding some of that science, not basing our decisions solely on research provided by pesticide manufacturers.

Anyways - The referenced pollen study indicates that they found Imidacloprid at rate of 1.1 to 5.7 microg/kg in 11 samples - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16686121


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## cleareyes (Mar 2, 2008)

Ian said:


> I have no evidence. That's the problem here , nobody does. We are being told our evidence... We all know there is a problem, Chem being part of it. Will our issues disappear when farmers are forced to quit using neonics? I certainly hope so !


I agree
Entombed pollen is the only visible chemical problem I've seen in my hives for many years...

I found this documentary interesting... The part concerning the bees starts at 14:00 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=849&v=QV9dhGv_tTs


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## hossein yeganehrad (Aug 31, 2006)

Hello,swarming in Sep is the cause of protein deficiency usually it happen with colony of no pollen ,and bees has 0 fat deposit which is in normal health with good naturation bees should have 4to 7% fat deposit and max can be 13 +-2%
at this stage of malnutrition non of bees gland are able to produce royal and worker jelly as a result seeman in spermatica can not fortelaize the aggs and requeeining will happen .it lots more to say .


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## stevethebeeman (Mar 27, 2013)

I've heard from seed dealers bragging that in 5 years that a bug wont even be able to survive in a bean field. If that happens we in the Midwest are done soybeans everywhere the future does not look good for us


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## UTvolshype (Nov 26, 2012)

Makin' Honey said:


> Yes there is for some but not all.


It may have more to do with no fall flow the further south and east you get. I've got five hives in Trion Ga above Summerville, 25 hives below Lake Carter off US411 south of Chatsworth and a few in Canton. The goldenrod flow was great in Trion, fair in Chatsworth and very poor in Canton. I had late swarms in Trion and in Chatsworth but the hives are heavy with bees and honey in these north-west locations. In Canton, I'll have to feed like heck to keep them alive. Per the comment about queen types, I've had more problems with carni and russian-proline queens this summer that with Italians. Some carni stock just won't kick brood laying back in gear in September without heavy feeding or a strong nectar flow. Don't know if they run out of sperm or pollen or some other issue. The more Italian mutts are easier to keep this far south, just keep feeding and keep young queens in the hive and they get crazy strong as long as you treat for mites.


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