# Small hive, doing poorly, need advice



## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

the big hive sounds just like classic fall Varroa collapse. It's hard to say about the little hive w/o seeing pictures throughout it's history or how brood etc.. looks.


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## DaisyNJ (Aug 3, 2015)

First year here, so take it with huge grain of salt. 

There is an excellent , detailed (and recent) thread on all the things that need to come together for successful TF. My situation is similar to Op - a Commercial Nuc split and then re-queened, with TF queens. Two TF hives perished, two are going and one (result of swam queen) looks Italian from the way they hunker down on a 50F day. So not lot of hope for it. 

I ended up treating with OAV this year. I believe I didnt have all the factors lined up this year that are required for successful TF (all those discussed in that thread). 

I will take stock of situation in coming March and chart another course for TF attempt for 2017. 

Note: I strongly believe that the usual commercial stock cannot be turned into TF stock. One would need either good TF Nucs or introduce TF queens into clean Nucs.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

hello wi_bee and welcome to the treatment free sub-forum on beesource!

if your original nuc and nwc queen did not come from stock having a history of doing well off treatments the chances are pretty good that varroa mites are responsible for the abscond of the big hive and the weakened state of the small hive.

if you examine the brood frames left behind in the big hive you may be able to see guanine deposits which is also referred to as 'mite frass'. you can probably google a photo of it, but basically it's small white dandruffy looking stuff stuck to the walls of the brood cells. seeing a lot of it would help confirm that you had a high mite infestation.

if there happened to be any capped brood left behind in the big hive, take a tweezers and uncap and try to pull out the larvae/pupae. if there is nothing but a gooey mess in there that is suggestive of a viral or bacterial infection. if there is a more developed bee in there look at the wings for deformity or at the abdomen for stunting. these are signs of viral infection vectored from mites.

if you haven't done so already, get the comb not donated to the small hive into a freezer to protect it from wax moth damage. it will come in real handy next year.

it's almost impossible to see mites on bees. the only way to know how large of an infestation the little hive has is by sampling. i prefer the alcohol wash method. someone with experience in your area could better address whether or not there is time enough left this season for effectively dealing with a high mite infestation, and what i mean by that is the successful fall brooding of a healthy overwintering bee population is pretty important for a colony to make it through the long cold winter you have up there.

i've only been at this since 2010, and fortunately for me bees are available here that do very well against varroa mites without treatment. what i have noticed however is that every fall and winter we do have many reports from first year beekeepers attempting treatment free beekeeping with commercially produced bees that end up like yours.

i would consider attempting a search for folks in your neck of the woods having success keeping bees off treatments and get your next bees from them. mirror their management practices as well. there is a 'treatment free members listing thread' stickied to this subforum. perhaps there is someone close to you that can help.

if bees like that are not available to you it may be necessary to incorporate mite monitoring and the use of approved treatments for your cng operation. there are some who have managed by careful selection and propagation from survivors to end up with mite resistant bees from commercial stock, but i think this would be hard to do with only a few colonies to work with.

by the way, i spent several of my childhood years in racine and still have some family there. i'm always sure to bring some cheese, summer sausage, and kringle home with me when i come up to visit.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Sounds like you have done OK. If you have a local mentor they might give you input if you have enough food on them. Next year maybe start more nucs and go into winter with more colonies sourcing some TF or mite resistant queens to get yourself going. If you have feral bees, I would also set out some swarm traps to bump up the numbers. With numbers you increase your odds of having something to work with. I didn't do the feral thing, but a portion of my bees came from a program that selects for mite resistance. 

I started with 1 nuc and ended up with 8 nucs going into my first winter. 6 survived giving me something to work with. This is my 3rd winter and am going into it with 20 large hives and 43 nucs TF fingers crossed. You may have colder winters than me, but similar is possible but not with typical packages as source material. Saskatraz queens may be a good choice for you in your climate.


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## WI_bee (Oct 4, 2016)

squarepeg said:


> if you examine the brood frames left behind in the big hive you may be able to see guanine deposits which is also referred to as 'mite frass'. you can probably google a photo of it, but basically it's small white dandruffy looking stuff stuck to the walls of the brood cells. seeing a lot of it would help confirm that you had a high mite infestation.


Yes! There was a good deal of this. I had envisioned mite frass to be brown or black, so I mistook the white areas to be mold.
I will have to look at the remaining frames again for capped brood, although offhand I don't recall any.
I will certainly look harder for TF WI and IL beekeepers. Beesource is looking to be the best place to find them, so I am grateful to be here.
I enjoyed your two seasons of records from your apiary. It would take a great deal to get me to leave my home state (three cheers for kringle!), but you sure make Alabama look tempting for beekeeping.


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## WI_bee (Oct 4, 2016)

Thank you to everyone who replied. I contacted several area beekeepers today through a swarm retrieval website and found one local Beek who says he is "TF with spot treatment for mites". That might just be the best in my area at this point, so I'm working with him on getting a couple of nucs and, later, queens for splitting those, next year. He also said that it is possibly not too late to treat with oxalic acid, so tomorrow I am going to give the little hive 2:1 syrup and if they take it then I will treat them with OA (allowed by CNG with proof of infestation).
Thank you all again for all you contributed to the discussion. This is such a wonderful resource.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

:thumbsup:

best of luck going forward wb. i hope you'll keep us posted, i'm looking forward to hearing about how it all works out for you up there.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

WI_bee said:


> Given this (lengthy) intro, does it sound like we can carry on as planned, without treatment, or is there something I should do to help improve the small hive's odds this winter?


Feed these bees. For future hives, start with feral bees. Call someone in your area who does cutouts, and ask to purchase bees that descend from a queen that was in an old, well established cutout.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

The bees that I have that have their roots in package Italian queens are absolutely horrible at dealing with any amount of mite load. 4% infestation and they've got hundreds of crawlers and a bunch of babies with deformed wings.


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## kg7 (Jun 28, 2016)

All I have to do is read a few of these threads and see why I decided on oxalic acid vapor. 

BUT a sticky board would help you see where you are with !it's.

1sr year and thankful for sticky boards


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

jwcarlson said:


> 4% infestation and they've got hundreds of crawlers and a bunch of babies with deformed wings.


wow. if that's not hypervirulence than i don't know what is. this contrasts to the >10% infestation rates that i see here with no visible impacts. let's all wish randy oliver success with his efforts to come up with a way to displace those nasty viruses with less virulent ones. consider donating to his cause if you haven't done so already.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

squarepeg said:


> wow. if that's not hypervirulence than i don't know what is. this contrasts to the >10% infestation rates that i see here with no visible impacts. let's all wish randy oliver success with his efforts to come up with a way to displace those nasty viruses with less virulent ones. consider donating to his cause if you haven't done so already.


It is not necessarily virus types that differ, bees have huge variation in their ability to withstand viruses. 

As an example: I got an Italian queen from a friend. I put into one of my home yards hives and just about exactly 3 weeks later loads of deformed bees started to appear on the entrance.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

JW, I don't care what is the percentage of mites in there. As long as
you are propagating the non-resistant bees there, as your apiary grows these
genetics will be spread around especially when you graft them every season.
In a situation like this I would find them the mite resistant bees to incorporate into
my apiary. This season I've spent quite a bit trying to bring in the good mite fighting
genetics here. And so far they're doing a very good job in controlling the mites. I don't
mind them uncapping the pupae to disrupt the mite cycle as long as the hive is still living.
Going to get some mite biting bees if this season does not hold up. So far I don't have to
treat with anything. They are serious at uncapping the mite infested cells!


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

I think the local threshold recommended here is 1 percent. I think almost all hives are at least this level. 

I haven't had the final mite count on mine going into winter. Still awaiting a visit from the Foster lab. I suspect a couple reluctant feeders may be having trouble. Almost all the hives are broodless from my spot inspections so its difficult to determine if there is a collapse happening. Also have a few nucs that seem to be having trouble with lower populations than should be.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

If you are situated in a relatively moderate climate and excellent forage your bees may be able to _survive_ with a quite high mite presence. You may sacrifice some potential honey yield but the slippage caused by mite damage may be tolerable.
If your winters are much colder and longer and night temperatures cool even into June the potential honey yield under ideal conditions might be only 90 pounds or less. Mite pressure at the same level would have a disproportionately higher affect on the colony than on the one in bounteous conditions.

Mite level treatment thresholds recommended by Canadian Agriculture have been lowered and I treat at even lower levels. The bees I have are supposedely fairly mite sensing hygenic but pulling infested brood if levels are high will stall colony buildup. I learned that lesson first summer and have not had problems since striving for near zero mite levels. Merely surviving does not meet my criteria.

Edit; My apologies for apparently promoting treatment: on re-reading I just now realized this is the treatment free forum.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

squarepeg said:


> let's all wish randy oliver success with his efforts to come up with a way to displace those nasty viruses with less virulent ones. consider donating to his cause if you haven't done so already.


more about randy's collaborative project:

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/scibeeimages/Sampling-Instructions-PDF.pdf

and more about the healthy hives 2020 initiative:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...rs-to-key-bee-health-questions-300286846.html


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Juhani Lunden said:


> As an example: I got an Italian queen from a friend. I put into one of my home yards hives and just about exactly 3 weeks later loads of deformed bees started to appear on the entrance.


perhaps something like this was a factor in that scenario juhani:

http://www.nature.com/articles/srep33065


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

squarepeg said:


> perhaps something like this was a factor in that scenario juhani:
> 
> http://www.nature.com/articles/srep33065


 The Italian queen had been mated in the same (my own) mating station. Why did that not happen to any the queens of my own line?

Only the Italian queen had serious virus problems. Virus resistance in my own stock is one explanation.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

squarepeg said:


> wow. if that's not hypervirulence than i don't know what is. this contrasts to the >10% infestation rates that i see here with no visible impacts. let's all wish randy oliver success with his efforts to come up with a way to displace those nasty viruses with less virulent ones. consider donating to his cause if you haven't done so already.


"My bees" get around/above 10% and don't show much of any issue. A couple dead larva, a couple with DWV. Not much for crawlers typically.
I don't know what it is, but I cannot imagine the amount of mite treatment needed to keep them under control.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Thanks for the link squarepeg.

I see DWV as constantly present in my environment and the breakout of symptoms as a sign of failings in managements or failings in resistance, which will help with selecting.
Same as with herpes virus in humans which breaks out with stress situations or a bad immune system.

Feeding honey, developing microflora or selecting to more propolis use could help with that, maybe.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

juhani, i wrongly assumed the italian queen you got from your friend was already mated since you were observing brood 3 weeks later, my apologies.

sibylle, i agree that there are likely many factors including those you mentioned that are involved with natural resistance, most of which are not well understood as of yet. i'm not sure which factors are in play with my bees, but a strict treatment free approach (assuming losses are manageable and measures are taken to avoid transmission to nearby colonies) selects for the winners regardless of the reason. hopefully science will shed some light on the how's and why's as time goes on.

wb, it looks like your thread has taken a few twists and turns, how is your remaining colony doing?


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

carlson, can you describe the difference between 'your bees' that don't have much issue with around 10% infestation and the ones with their roots in italian package bees that have serious issues with 4%, i.e. what is the difference in pedigree?


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

squarepeg said:


> carlson, can you describe the difference between 'your bees' that don't have much issue with around 10% infestation and the ones with their roots in italian package bees that have serious issues with 4%, i.e. what is the difference in pedigree?


Swarmed out of a bee tree about 40 miles from here (which was close to work at the time). Been raising queens from her and raised them this year as early as I could to *hopefully* get them mated when it was the 'best of the best' after winter. So those queens mated this year around the time most people are shaking packages in, and at the very least quite some time before packages would be issuing drones of mature age.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

very good move on your part carlson and even better that it produced the results you were looking for. thanks for the reply.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

jwcarlson said:


> *hopefully* get them mated when it was the 'best of the best' after winter.


I like your thinking here. That's my plan for queen rearing next year.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

squarepeg said:


> very good move on your part carlson and even better that it produced the results you were looking for. thanks for the reply.


I'm just a mild-mannered troll trying to make some honey and queens. 



Nordak said:


> I like your thinking here. That's my plan for queen rearing next year.


It's worked well, or at least worked as intended. I can't imagine how early you could rear queens down there. I grafted April 15th. We had a little mini blizzard a few days before I grafted. Warm enough it didn't really stick, but it was close to a white out.
I was worried it would fail fantastically, but thankfully it didn't (but the weather is a huge wild card here at that time). I did two batches a week apart and they both mated at the same time because of the weather. 
I fed a good glob of sub in late February when we had kind of an odd-ball 50-some degree day to try to spur some earlier drone production.

Anyway... not to derail the thread. I just wanted to chime in on my experiences with package Italian bees. Maybe it's something I'm doing wrong, but I don't believe that to be the case.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

jwcarlson said:


> I'm just a mild-mannered troll trying to make some honey and queens.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Your April sounds similar to March here when I plan on starting the grafts, earlier than later if possible. If this last winter was any indication, I could probably graft in February and be fine. Winters are always a bit of a wild card.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

jwcarlson said:


> at the very least quite some time before packages would be issuing drones of mature age.


Nice. Had not occurred to me. I'm focused on "where", and should have also been thinking "when". Those queens will begin producing their own drones.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

jwcarlson said:


> I'm just a mild-mannered troll


No part of that is true.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Riverderwent said:


> No part of that is true.


Thanks for the laugh!


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Riverderwent said:


> Nice. Had not occurred to me. I'm focused on "where", and should have also been thinking "when". Those queens will begin producing their own drones.


I don't have an isolated enough place, or at least I don't think one exists up here. But getting them mated early occurred to me last winter as at least one gate to avoid dealing with a huge influx of drones from new packages shaken into hives in May and issuing drones during June. Certainly not cream of the crop... This spring the plan is to graft from the best of the queens I got from Mr. Palmer and mate them in the yard saturated with daughter's mated before packages...  

And of course had more daughters mate later in the year with that whole mix to see if there's any appreciable difference.


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## WI_bee (Oct 4, 2016)

squarepeg said:


> wb, it looks like your thread has taken a few twists and turns, how is your remaining colony doing?


Thanks for asking. My son went out to check on them yesterday. They are pretty much unchanged. I have no experience yet with overwintering bees, but it would seem that they have a very slim chance for survival. If I found them with this population in February I would be amazed that they were surviving--and there is no new brood, so how can their situation improve through the winter? I just gave them 16 frames of beautiful, TF, capped honey (not from feeding syrup) from the other hive and I wonder if I should just harvest that honey and let this hive go. If I knew they had a chance I wouldn't think that way at all, but under the circumstances, I wonder.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

i agree from what you are describing that the colony doesn't have much chance of making through your long cold winter.

i think the main thing at this point is to keep a close eye on the hive and consider a reduced entrance and perhaps a robber screen. it would add insult to injury if you lost all of that good honey to robbers instead of enjoying it for yourselves.

the other thing is use a freezer or otherwise to protect all of that drawn comb. it will give your bees next season a nice head start.


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