# Deformed wing virus in a treatment free hive.



## tjay (Jun 17, 2015)

Hello folks, 

I have one hive that has been doing fine treatment free for 9 years. Last year I collected and hived a swarm from this hive. The hived swarm was over wintered in a deep hive body and by April of this year they had drawn out all the frames in the deep. It was thick with bees. Fourmore deep frames were drawn in a deep that I used as a super. Things started slowing down about 3 weeks ago. In the last two weeks I have seen crawling, bees with deformed wings, in front of this hive. I check once daily and have been seeing between 5 to 7 crawling bees with DWV in front of this hive on each check.

There are 8 other hives in the yard with this infected hive. None of them are showing any symptoms. I went through this hive frame by frame four weeks ago. I looked closely at the bees (using a long focal length magnifying glass) looking for varroa and saw none. This may not be a good monitoring method for varroa but I took my time looking and saw none.

The hive is on a solid bottom board.

Recommend a response for me to pursue to address this DWV issue. I have never seen it before. 

Tony


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

welcome tony. i haven't seen any dmv or crawlers this year, but from time to time i'll see some coming out of one hive or another. usually it's just a handful or two like you are describing and usually it's short lived. i haven't been doing anything about it and so far it has cleared up on it's own. 

i do occasionally lose a colony over the winter from mites as evidenced by lots of guanine deposits in the brood cells and finding what brood gets left behind is diseased, but this has been rare here.

at this point in the season i would be tempted to take another look at the broodnest and see if there is a good pattern vs. a shot gun pattern. i would also do an alcohol wash to see if the mite count is sky high (>15%). if things don't look too bad i would let it ride. 

the main thing i would watch for is robbing of the hive in question. if that happens and the brood is obviously sick i would at least remove it from the yard and/or consider euthanizing it.

i also have observed the slowing down of new comb getting drawn here over the past few weeks and i'm chalking it up to the trailing off of the nectar flow.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Was it a primary swarm with a mated queen? If so this is quite interesting because it must have survived mites in the parent hive OK, but after swarming got a mite / DWV issue. So wondering if there is anything different about the hive you put it in, such as maybe, possibly contaminated foundation, or anything else you can think of?

Sorry can't help fix your problem, but figuring if there are any differences with the new home may help with why TF beekeeping works for some but not others.

There's just one thing I can add they may or may not be helpful. Some of my hives get more mites depending how they are situated in the apiary. I have one hive in a corner position gets lots of mites, and if I swap it with a good one the new hive will get mites. I can only assume it is in a position that picks up mite infested bees more so than the others.


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

The queen could have started using sperm from a drone whose workers would be susceptible to the virus. If you will do even a sugar dusting of the hive you will get some idea of the varroa population. If things look really bad you could treat the hive, when the sperm donor changes again things may clear up. This is one of the problems of treatment free beekeeping, the change of sperm donors can give a hive different characteristics. 

(I know that the sperm is "mixed," but I also can see by the color changes in workers that being "clumped" but mixed may be more correct.)


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## AL from Georgia (Jul 14, 2014)

No offense intended here, but 'looking' for mites on bees is not the way to check mite loads. You should be performing alcohol washes on a regular basis, and you should always know your current mite load. Knowing your mite load is important, whether you use treatments or other methods, you need to know when mites are overwhelming your bees. This season so far I have experienced a mite load of less than 1% up until my mid June mite count. The load on that count jumped to 4.5%! I now intend to treat for mites if levels go above 2% in late summer/early fall, or above 1% during the rest of the year. Luckily, the honey had just been removed, and the weather was right for a formic acid treatment using MAQS. You may be interested to know I did not properly test or treat for mites in my first season of beekeeping, and lost every hive in early winter....all evidence pointed to Varroa mites. Not trying to offend, just trying to help.


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## AL from Georgia (Jul 14, 2014)

Oh, and if you do an alcohol wash on this hive, it would be great to know what you find. It could help lots of other beekeepers that have the same problem. Good luck to you no matter what happens.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

"You should be performing alcohol washes on a regular basis, and you should always know your current mite load. Knowing your mite load is important, whether you use treatments or other methods, you need to know when mites are overwhelming your bees."

I keep bees. I make splits, trap swarms, sell nucleus hives, do cut outs and trap outs, sell honey in various forms and sizes to various markets, raise queens, and have state inspections. I have seen one bee with a deformed wing. I bought two nucleus hives, was given one, and have bought a few VSH, Wooten, and Florida queens. I have not had any palpable winter losses, yet. I did catch a swarm last November that didn't make it and have had the occasional cut out or trapped swarm abscond or not make it. I have had a couple of hives with laying workers, including one of the two that I purchased, and have occasionally requeened a hot hive, including the one I was given. I consider myself successful based on my purposes, which are different than most peoples'. I have never personally done an alcohol wash of my bees, although the state inspector has. I do not know what the mite load is on any of my hives other than what might be inferred from the overall condition of the hives. I don't treat, and I rarely feed sugar syrup. That's just me. That approach seems to baffle or even offend some people here, but not my local commercial beekeeper friends, who I respect. It is what it is, and it is mostly enjoyable.


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## tjay (Jun 17, 2015)

Thanks for the help Squarepeg. I will go into the hive. 

Tony


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## tjay (Jun 17, 2015)

Oldtimer,

There is no way for me to determine if the swarm was primary. The parent hive is in my front yard 300 yards from my bee yard. The swarm settled in a single deep swarm trap I had baited with nothing more that 10 frames of foundation. The bees had drawn 5 frames before I noticed them. I moved those 5 frames to a box with 5 foundationless frames. The swarm trap was positioned 10 yards and 12 feet above the parent hive. At the time I had no other hives within 300 yards of this one. I assumed it came from the hive below it.

Though I have discontinued the practice the original untreated hive was started on foundation and I have changed none of it out. I had 3 other hives started on foundation between 2003 and 2006. None where ever treated. They did fine. I did nothing more than keep them as feral and take a little honey for my own use. That all ended in 2012 when all 3 were lost. When I went through the hives they were full of SHB larva. It happened in about a 3 week period. One week they were fine and 3 weeks later they were infested. For some reason the parent hive of the swarm in question, which was within 150 yards of the 3 three which I lost, made it just fine.

Thanks,
Tony


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

How sure are you it was a swarm from that hive? You could've lost the swarm and some other bees moved in? Anyways, seeing crawlers is a bad sign but not the end of the world. You need to look at your brood pattern and quality to really assess the situation. Seeing mites on drones is more common than workers, but I always figure if you're seeing phoretic mites, the population is high.


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## AL from Georgia (Jul 14, 2014)

Riverderwent, I am glad to see you are currently having success without knowing your mite levels. I would like to refer to the Jeff Harris article in the May 2015 issue of Bee Culture. In the article, Jeff points out how he has to constantly convince folks, using a microscope at times, that Varroa mites are killing their bees. He refers to at least 12 beekeepers losing their bees (in Mississippi) due to the lack of Varroa testing and control. Those 12 beeks lost over 900 colonies collectively last season, in Jeff's expert opinion, to Varroa infestation and the resulting decline. One beekeeper lost over 200 colonies (of 400), and had to see for himself, through a microscope, that his hives were heavily infested before he would believe Jeff. I do not doubt that you have success in your operation, but this is not the norm by far. As a beginner, I lost all of my bees to Varroa because I took bad advice and would not listen to successful beekeepers. I wish you continued success, but I hope the op will consider your situation to be unique. A regular alcohol wash to check mite levels would not be a harm to any beekeeping operation, but this is just my humble opinion. How many years have you kept bees Riverderwent? With the natural resistance to mites your bees seem to display, you may want to consider selling queens. Sounds like you have something figured out, anyway.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Thanks for the useful and detailed reply Tony.

JRG13 also raises a good point, it may not be 100% certain it's the same swarm.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

"Sounds like you have something figured out, anyway."

AL, I don't think that I have anything figured out. I am trying to work with a decent amount of possibly promising genetics in a fairly short period and find something that will work on a fairly sustained basis. Broken brood cycles, summers splits, leaving the bees plenty of honey, not migrating to pollinate, and pretty good feral genetics may help. I'm fairly new, and I don't know what the future holds, but I am not trying to maximize honey production and so far it seems like my bees do about as well or better than others that I hear about.


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## tjay (Jun 17, 2015)

Thanks AR Beekeper. I added a store bought nuc to the yard this year. That could be the source of a less resistant drone. They were marketed as treatment free but I have no idea if that is true.

Tony


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## tjay (Jun 17, 2015)

JRG13 There is no way I can be 100% sure of the source of the swarm. The hive below it seems like the most reasonable source. It is the only know hive within 3 miles that know of. Again a judgment call but a very educated one. It could be a wild swarm. But that is A-OK too. Thanks for the thought.

Hopefully I will get some good weather tomorrow and take a closer look as squarepeg suggested. 


Tony


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## tjay (Jun 17, 2015)

Thanks AL from GA. I realize a visual does not quantify the mite load. I stated so in my initial entry. I will learn to do an alcohol wash.


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## tjay (Jun 17, 2015)

Squarepeg I did as you suggested but was unable to do a alcohol wash as I was interrupted. 

Guys here is what I found. 

I only got through 70% of the hive body before company put a halt to the endeavor.
I have two deeps under one medium. There are three drawn combs of honey in the medium. 4 drawn combs of honey in the top deep with all the brood in the bottom deep. I got through 7 frames in the bottom and here is what I found. Frame 1 (against the wall) a frame of pollen topped with honey with a few larva interspaced in the pollen. Frame two-both sides covered in capped brood. One side of the frame was a mix of empty cells (no eggs) and capped brood and the other side was a pretty side of uninterrupted capped brood. Frame 3 was a mix of capped brood and eggs. Frame 4 and 5 was all eggs with almost no missed cells. Frame 6 and 7 were pollen with honey above with uncapped larva interspaced in the pollen. I did not look at the remaining 3 frames. No cells I saw were backfilled with nectar in the bottom box. I found 3 empty queen cups and an empty open queen cell with firm and rounded edges as if it had been there awhile. There were enough bees to cover the combs. There were bees orienting outside the hive. There were about 15 bees with deformed wings walking outside the hive. The most I have seen at one time. I looked closely at the bees on 6 frames and saw none with deformed wings on the frames. Are the healthy bees tossing the sick bees outside? I am thinking the original queen has been superseded and her replacement is now laying. If this is a superseded and the new queen was mated promptly would you expect new evenly laid eggs by a new queen, a very small amount of scattered open brood and the frame of capped brood from the old queen? 

I am not sure if this hive is lossing or gaining ground.

What does everyone think?

Thanks,
Tony


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

tony,

i would have expect the overwintered swarm to have drawn out more comb than that. even though the swarm was cast from what sounds like has been a really good colony, it may turn out that they aren't going to perform as well. i have seen that happen here and i have also seen really good colonies come from what were not so good ones.

it sounds like you have a nice broodnest there and with no signs of any frank disease. i think i would let it ride for now. seeing a few dozen dmv and crawlers doesn't necessarily mean that collapse is imminent.

i would likely just keep an eye on them and sample for mites when i got the chance. if i were rearing queens this colony would likely be one that i would pinch the queen and make splits from to put new queens in.


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## tjay (Jun 17, 2015)

Thanks squarepeg. I will watch it for a while.


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