# Dumb question - bees crawling on the ground



## elsyr (Dec 2, 2008)

One of the things I noticed after hiving my two packages of bees this past weekend was a small number of bees crawling around on the ground. By small I mean something like 20-30 or so. I assumed that these were bees that had been (unfortunately) damaged during the process of getting them from the package to the hive and that it was a relatively normal phenomenon. However, I'm still seeing the occasional crawler 4 days later, still in very small numbers (under 10, I'd say). Having done a bit of searching I'm begining to wonder if I have a potential problem (nosema?), and thought I should check to see if this was a normal thing. 

Thanks,
doug


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## dhood (May 26, 2008)

Its normal to see them out in front of the hive crawling after a package installation. You have nothing to worry about.


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## elsyr (Dec 2, 2008)

dhood said:


> Its normal to see them out in front of the hive crawling after a package installation. You have nothing to worry about.


Nothing to worry about? How will I keep myself occupied?  I swear I feel like a paranoid first time parent, only with 20,000 children.

Doug


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## Abha (Apr 18, 2009)

elsyr said:


> Nothing to worry about? How will I keep myself occupied?  I swear I feel like a paranoid first time parent, only with 20,000 children.
> 
> Doug


It is worse when you feel like they ought to have called _Child Protective Services_ on you because you did some awful stupid things to your packages!!


Abha


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## nwgabeeman (Apr 18, 2009)

Hey everyone,

what about 2 weeks after an install from a nuc.

I noticed yesterday "morning only" about 20-30 bees dead on the ground
with a few trying to leave the hive but couldn't fly. I mention morning because I didn't see any addtional dead bees after lunch. As a new beek 
I'm not sure if I should be concerned. I have seen a mention of possible pesticide poisoning. Any comments?

nwgabeeman


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

*bees crawling*

It's possible that the crawlers have nosema.
You might consider feeding Fumagillin
Ernie


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## nwgabeeman (Apr 18, 2009)

I've read that "crawling" is a sign of Trachael mites". Could this be a possibility?

Thanks.

nwgabeeman


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## Margaret Sloan (Jun 23, 2008)

We had crawlers from our new nucs all last year until we treated with Formic acid for a terrible varroa mite infestation. Now we have hardly any crawlers, which leads me to think it was tracheal mites. 

But the worst episode of crawlers was also at the time the horse chestnut (that is unfortunately directly under our hives) was blooming, which led some more advanced beekeeps to diagnose horse chestnut poisoning. It did get better after the blooms faded, so maybe we had a bit of both chestnut poisoning and tracheal mite?


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