# Changes in brood pattern



## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

A month ago, I purchased and installed a nuc. At that time, the queen had a beautiful laying pattern -- solid, shaped like a football. After installing the nuc into my horizontal hive, she stopped laying for a week. I didn't see any pollen coming in, so I figured that had something to do with it. Gave them a very small pollen patty, which they basically ignored. The next week, the queen had begun laying a little, but the pattern was very spotty. I figured she just needed a little time to get used to her new surroundings, but unfortunately, the pattern has remained spotty. 

I noticed these bees are a little obsessive about their housekeeping, and I'm wondering if they're removing brood for some reason. When I put them into the hive, a whole gang of them came out and started cleaning around the entrance. They're still out there polishing the front of the hive a month later. I gave them a few frames to clean that had been frozen to kill wax moth larvae and eggs. There was some brood on those frames that was also frozen and which they promptly hauled out. Is it possible I accidentally kicked their urge to clean into high gear, and now they're taking it out on the new brood? Since the queen had a lovely laying pattern a month ago, I'm hesitant to blame the spotty pattern on her. I suspect she actually was laying during that first week, but the workers were removing all the brood. Maybe now they're removing less of it but still enough to create a shotgun pattern. Could it be that the frozen brood emitted a death stink that's lingering on the comb, making them think the freshly laid brood is dead and needs removing?

I plan to give HRH another frame or two of freshly drawn comb over the weekend and see if that helps. Any comments, suggestions, ideas?


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

8Ken said:


> A month ago, I purchased and installed a nuc. At that time, the queen had a beautiful laying pattern -- solid, shaped like a football. After installing the nuc into my horizontal hive, she stopped laying for a week.


So, how do you know IF the "beautiful laying pattern" actually belongs to the nuc queen?
You don't.


It is a common hack the nuc sellers insert brood frames from other hives into a quickly slapped together nuc (where the brood and the queen are not related to each other).


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## NUBE (May 24, 2009)

Definitely could be a hastily made “nuc” with an unproven Queen. In your location and with those symptoms, I’d perform a mite wash and take a close look at the brood combs checking for signs of disease. If the mites are low and there are no obvious signs of disease, I’d consider requeening. You do mention a lack of pollen also. They will cannibalize brood if they don’t have the resources to feed them. How is the honey/nectar/syrup reserve?


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

GregB said:


> So, how do you know IF the "beautiful laying pattern" actually belongs to the nuc queen?
> You don't.


true could have been a couple frames of brood a queen 2 shakes of bees viola a NUC

GG


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Gray Goose said:


> true could have been a couple frames of brood a queen 2 shakes of bees viola a NUC
> 
> GG


I think this is a pretty common pattern.
Discussed enough already - the topic of fake nucs (aka nuckages).

Making a true nucleus takes many days, even weeks.
Slapping together a fake nuc takes minutes.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

What has been said above may well be the case.

Beyond that, do not rush to replace the queen just yet. Spotty brood can be caused by varroa mites, and changing the queen will not fix that. Varroa mite levels should be checked, after that, other diseases such as EFB. After that, consider changing the queen, but take a look at all brood surfaces first, if you can find a solid brood pattern anywhere in the hive, it could be there are some manky old combs causing the issue.


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

NUBE said:


> Definitely could be a hastily made “nuc” with an unproven Queen. In your location and with those symptoms, I’d perform a mite wash and take a close look at the brood combs checking for signs of disease. If the mites are low and there are no obvious signs of disease, I’d consider requeening. You do mention a lack of pollen also. They will cannibalize brood if they don’t have the resources to feed them. How is the honey/nectar/syrup reserve?


The nuc came with nectar, honey, and a little pollen. On inspection last week, I found plenty of collected pollen. It was all different colors, so I know it wasn't from the little patty I gave them, which they ignored. They have ample surplus honey and nectar and are bringing in more every day. It looks like the dearth will be very brief here, if we have one at all.

I don't suppose the guy I got the nuc from is above such tactics, but I wouldn't expect it of him. He's a retired state apiary inspector and has been providing bees to my beekeeping friends, who all rave about him and his bees. They've all bought multiple queens from him and have never had anything bad to say about their performance.

I'll do a mite wash this weekend. It's possible they could have a big mite population, but there are no outward signs of it.. I pretty much ruled out PMS because the laying pattern was fine when I got the bees and went spotty a little over a week later. They wouldn't have a PMS problem develop that fast, would they? Then again, if he slipped a lovely brood frame or two in there from another hive, that would have masked the problem.

Thanks so much for the input. I'll follow up on here with the results of the mite wash and any other changes noted in the inspection.


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

Oldtimer said:


> What has been said above may well be the case.
> 
> Beyond that, do not rush to replace the queen just yet. Spotty brood can be caused by varroa mites, and changing the queen will not fix that. Varroa mite levels should be checked, after that, other diseases such as EFB. After that, consider changing the queen, but take a look at all brood surfaces first, if you can find a solid brood pattern anywhere in the hive, it could be there are some manky old combs causing the issue.


I haven't noticed any abnormal-looking larvae, but there isn't a whole lot of larvae to examine. So far, no solid brood pattern anywhere in the hive. I had planned to inspect today, but now it's raining, so I'll try again tomorrow and see if anything has changed.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Stubborn cases of sacbrood can result in spotty brood patterns and poor colony performance. Where forage is plentiful it may go unnoticed. In poor conditions that lend to robbing, it can pull a colony down. Since it often goes away by itself and sometimes goes away with requeening, but has no _proven effective_ treatment, there is conflicting opinions about how to handle it.

If none of the common causes of spotty brood and poor performance seem to fit, have a look at sacbrood. Swapping in a previously good queen is apparently not the answer.  Fortunately equipment does not have to be depopulated for more than 4 or 5 weeks for the virus to die.


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## ursa_minor (Feb 13, 2020)

8Ken said:


> Then again, if he slipped a lovely brood frame or two in there from another hive, that would have masked the problem.


You could ask, he might not have 'slipped' the lovely brood frame in, he could had added it to boost the nuc and was confident in his queen rearing skills to trust she was good. This might not be a case of an intentional misleading act.


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## birddog (May 10, 2016)

A polite call to the vendor seems in order


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

ursa_minor said:


> You could ask, he might not have 'slipped' the lovely brood frame in, he could had added it to boost the nuc and was confident in his queen rearing skills to trust she was good. This might not be a case of an intentional misleading act.


Personally don't consider this a nefarious practice. Unless it was done to hide a poor queen, but I doubt nuc sellers spend that much time evaluating each individual queen and then plot devious ways to hide the poor ones. That takes too much time and effort to be a general practice. Now, slapping together 'nucs' from random frames to make it 'balanced'? Probably happens a lot. And probably not usually much of a problem.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

AR1 said:


> Personally don't consider this a nefarious practice. Unless it was done to hide a poor queen, but I doubt nuc sellers spend that much time evaluating each individual queen and then plot devious ways to hide the poor ones. That takes too much time and effort to be a general practice. Now, slapping together 'nucs' from random frames to make it 'balanced'? Probably happens a lot. And probably not usually much of a problem.


I "slap " them together as well.
by the time the queen is out and mated the old brood is hatched.
in general I never sell one with brood from another queen still sealed in, IE in 3 weeks or less.
I start with a frame of stores, 3 frames of bee, 2 w/ brood, one with a cell , and one empty comb.
and 1 frame of shook bees. there is drift back, and then there is brood hatching.

maybe if the drift was heavy and the nuc was a bit weak , I may add another frame of brood, but adding it post queen out makes me nervous. I like to add pre queen emerge in case they go after her.

but I am sure every one does their NUC build in their own way.

I think I would send a pic of the pattern to the seller and ask if this is expected, you feel it is a bit spotty.
And converse from there.

If the man made 50 it can happen one or 2 are off, I would not tear him down for that.

GG


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Regardless IF a frame (or two or three) of brood from some other colony(s) has been used to make up the nuc - IF you care of your reputation you want to confirm the worthiness of the queen included with the nuc.
But that *takes time.*

So for any nucs I sold (my first experience this year) - I confirmed that sold queen is functioning OK *in the nuc.*
If people don't want to wait for the properly functioning nuc, I am not going to bother spending my time making the nuc for them.
I made this clear to anyone who approached me so far.

It is a two-way street, to be sure.
Some people (especially new people) don't understand the nuances and want immediate satisfaction of their wants (we do have this problem too).


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## birddog (May 10, 2016)

Is there actually a " death stink " you can smell or was there such a smell at any time


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

@birddog No, I don't smell anything unusual, but surely the bees are able to detect odors that I can't. I've pretty much ruled that out as the problem, though, because all the brood frames are spotty, even the ones that came with the nuc, not just the ones I froze.

@crofter Thanks for the suggestion. I'll do some research so I know what to look for when I inspect today. 

@ursa_minor et al: Maybe it would be good to know how the seller put the nuc together. Ideally, I would have asked that question when I picked the nuc up, but it didn't occur to me. I needed the nuc in a hurry, and he accommodated me, so I couldn't fault him for throwing it together at the last minute, if that's what he did. Still, I'll give him a call and ask him about it, since it might provide a clue as to why the pattern is spotty. 

If I can dodge the raindrops, I'll do my inspection shortly and will report back. Thanks to everyone for your input!


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

It rained all afternoon, so I didn't get to the inspection until today. I'm attaching a pic. Some of the cappings look sunken to me. The seller offered to give me a replacement queen which I'll pick up tomorrow, but I'm concerned about those sunken cappings. What do you all think? (Yes, I'm also battling wax moths, as you can see from the hole in the comb.
)


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

8Ken said:


> Some of the cappings look sunken to me.


Nothing is "sunken" on your picture.
Don't look for things that are not there.


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

GregB said:


> Nothing is "sunken" on your picture.
> Don't look for things that are not there.


Left middle... Those aren't sunken? I opened the pic in Paint and zoomed in to be sure. They do look sunken to me.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

8Ken said:


> Left middle... Those aren't sunken? I opened the pic in Paint and zoomed in to be sure. They do look sunken to me.


These are normal brood cells.
Do keep in mind - there is never uniformed cell level - some will stick up a bit; others will be lower a bit - this is normal.
If you see a real problem pattern, that will be pretty obvious then.

You are looking for a problem that is not there.
Keep in mind - AFB is a really uncommon problem.
Statistically it is negligible (even though this is an overused buzz word).
Look for the most common issues and you will be correct (almost) every single time about the issue.


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

GregB said:


> These are normal brood cells.
> Do keep in mind - there is never uniformed cell level - some will stick up a bit; others will be lower a bit - this is normal.
> If you see a real problem pattern, that will be pretty obvious then.


I see. Thanks for clarifying. I'm still new at this, so it all looks a little weird to me, lol!


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

So these are okay? Normal?


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

8Ken said:


> So these are okay? Normal?
> View attachment 70202


Normal, like I said.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

The sunken caps are normal. There is a cap with a hole in it which is also normal the bees are in the process of building the cap. Lower left there is a partly chewed pupa which may indicate mites, however there is not a heavy mite infestation, at least not apparent on this brood comb.
What does stand out is there are no uncapped larvae that can be seen.

Has it been treated with oxalic acid?


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## AHudd (Mar 5, 2015)

Most everything from the center of the frame has emerged, so that is a good sign. If you are still concerned, prick one of those cells open and see how the pupae appear.  

Alex


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## NUBE (May 24, 2009)

Nothing there that would make me think AFB. I didn’t see if you mentioned performing a mite wash. If you’re waiting until you see visible symptoms of PMS, you’re waiting too long. In my experience, spotty brood is a good sign of mite levels rising. Left untreated, you will start seeing uncapped pupae, a mite here and there on the back of a bee, and then, when things are getting really bad, melted looking larva that aren’t discolored.


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

Oldtimer said:


> What does stand out is there are no uncapped larvae that can be seen.


Yes, that frame was from the far side of the brood nest. Other frames had a few small patches of less than 10 larvae in close proximity to each other.


Oldtimer said:


> Has it been treated with oxalic acid?


Even though the seller is a retired state apiary inspector, he's TF. (Look up Woolie B's videos on YT. That's him.) He gives his bees a slew of different essential oils in their syrup and believes that ****tail is all they need to withstand the effects of mites. I'm not judging him, but I found way too many mites on the IPM board yesterday, just over a month since I installed the nuc. Since there's almost no brood in the hive, this would be a great time for an OA treatment. I'm picking up a replacement queen from the seller later this morning and will do the treatment before I put her cage in the hive. 

So now I'm wondering if I should dispatch the current queen. It's starting to sound like this could be a mite problem rather than a queen problem, but I'm going to have my hands on a new queen in a couple of hours. Would it be worth making a small split with the current queen, or should I just forget that and introduce her to the hive tool?


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

tough choice
is there enough bees to have 2 with 3 frames of bees each?
if so you can try it.
else pick what you think is the best one and go with her.
sure I would do the OAV to help get them back on track.

be nice to have some more bees.....

GG


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## NUBE (May 24, 2009)

If you have enough population and resources to support a small nuc, then sure. If the colony is already very weak, I’d be careful splitting them up.

OA May work fine if there really isn’t much capped brood, but, if I were you, I’d still perform a mite wash in 3-4 weeks of installing the new queen. Her first round of brood will be emerging by then and you can verify if the OA treatment was sufficient (from what I understand, a single OA treatment often isn’t this time of year though that can depend on whether you’re talking about a vapor or a dribble treatment. A dribble may be a bit harsh for a weakened hive).

If the seller was feeding them essential oils he was performing some sort of treatment. People may have opinions on the efficacy of that treatment, but if he sold you bees that are used to some sort of constant or periodic mite intervention and you haven’t either followed the seller’s treatment scheme or developed your own, then mites can get out of hand pretty fast this time of the season.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

8Ken said:


> Even though the seller is a *retired state apiary inspector*, he's TF. (Look up Woolie B's videos on YT. That's him.) .........


This guy is a retired state apiary inspector?
Are you serious?

Look at how he counts his mites (for being an inspector) 
ADDED: (.......AND reports to the whole world about it too in all seriousness). 

I don't know if I want to be inspected by this inspector (former that is):
(121) I did my first EVER mite count. - YouTube

Or buy bees from him, for that matter.


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

NUBE said:


> If you have enough population and resources to support a small nuc, then sure. If the colony is already very weak, I’d be careful splitting them up.


Yeah, on second thought, as much as I'd like to spare a queen, I really don't have a lot of bees to support another nuc, especially since that queen hasn't been laying very well for the past month. My only other hive is from a split I made earlier in the season and would probably suffer if I took many bees from them. So hive tool it is. 


NUBE said:


> OA May work fine if there really isn’t much capped brood, but, if I were you, I’d still perform a mite wash in 3-4 weeks of installing the new queen. Her first round of brood will be emerging by then and you can verify if the OA treatment was sufficient (from what I understand, a single OA treatment often isn’t this time of year though that can depend on whether you’re talking about a vapor or a dribble treatment. A dribble may be a bit harsh for a weakened hive).


I use a fogger, so no worries about the dribble. I agree about checking again in a few weeks. If this colony is going to make it through winter, I'll probably have to knock the mites back a few more times between now and November.


NUBE said:


> If the seller was feeding them essential oils he was performing some sort of treatment. People may have opinions on the efficacy of that treatment, but if he sold you bees that are used to some sort of constant or periodic mite intervention and you haven’t either followed the seller’s treatment scheme or developed your own, then mites can get out of hand pretty fast this time of the season.


I think his idea was to boost their immune systems with the essential oils to help them fight off any viruses from the mites rather than as a way to get rid of the mites. The essential oils apparently work well enough for him in his location, but he's in a somewhat remote area. I have a lot more bees around me than he does and have always had to keep a close eye on things and treat when necessary.


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

GregB said:


> This guy is a retired state apiary inspector?
> Are you serious?
> 
> Look at how he counts his mites (for being an inspector)
> ...


Honestly, he wasn't even in my top three picks for a source of bees, but he got to the top of the list because he _had_ bees at a time when I needed them and no one else had any. The good news is that the bees I got from him are so much gentler than the ones they replaced. That was my goal anyway, to get rid of some awful genetics from what I think was a usurpation by local Africanized bees. They were getting homicidal, and I had to do something quick. In a perfect world, I could have been more picky about the source. Still, I appreciated him giving me a replacement queen at no charge. 

Between requeening and treating for mites, maybe this colony stands a chance of rebounding before winter.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

8Ken said:


> Honestly, he wasn't even in my top three picks for a source of bees, but he got to the top of the list because *he had bees at a time when I needed them and no one else had any.* The good news is that the bees I got from him are so much gentler than the ones they replaced. That was my goal anyway, to get rid of some awful genetics from what I think was a usurpation by local Africanized bees. They were getting homicidal, and I had to do something quick. In a perfect world, I could have been more picky about the source. Still, I appreciated him giving me a replacement queen at no charge.
> 
> Between requeening and treating for mites, maybe this colony stands a chance of rebounding before winter.


This is all fine.
He had the bees - good for him.
Just do realize he sells the bees *loaded *with mites - which in your situation maybe bad news.
That was the entire story is about - really.

He should preface each nuc sold - "loaded with mites, the buyer is to handle this asap". 
Basically.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

8Ken said:


> He gives his bees a slew of different essential oils in their syrup and believes that ****tail is all they need to withstand the effects of mites. I'm not judging him, but I found way too many mites on the IPM board yesterday, just over a month since I installed the nuc. Since there's almost no brood in the hive, this would be a great time for an OA treatment.


Hi Ken the reason I asked if they were treated with oxalic acid is that a massive overdose of oxalic acid can cause spotty brood if the acid finds it's way into the food supply. What happens is larvae just emerged from the egg are very vulnerable, to even much lower levels of oxalic acid than would hurt an adult bee. So they get killed just after emerging from the egg and you get spotty brood. The way to tell this is going on is to see if there are lots of eggs, but not a correspondingly high number of young larvae. Bear in mind for some of us eggs are hard to see.
That he was treating with essential oils could also be a problem as they can have a similar effect, and you say he was mixing them with the syrup so they will no doubt be getting fed to the larvae.

I would suggest not treating with oxalic acid just incase it adds to the problem, but instead treating with Apivar or similar, as it is very gentle on bees and brood.

Since you are getting the new queen regardless, may as well use it, all the best


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

@GregB I did know that he doesn't use conventional treatments, so I expected to bring home a big load of mites with the bees. I figured I could treat them myself, and at the time, I really needed some gentle bees. Shame on me for waiting a month to do a treatment, though. I'll see how things look and may give them another fogging over the weekend if it appears they need it.

@Oldtimer That's interesting. Any idea what a "massive overdose" would be? I've heard of people with extreme mite loads treating every other day for weeks. I suppose that could accumulate into an overdose. One doesn't always know how the bees one purchases have been managed, so I guess I'm lucky to know that mine were raised TF and fed what could amount to a toxic mix of essential oils. A little spearmint and lemongrass oil in the syrup seems to be okay, but I'd be concerned about secondary compounds formed by mixing a dozen or so different essential oils together.

As it turns out, I did have enough bees to make a split after all, so I decided to hang onto that queen until I can see what her laying pattern looks like after mites have been ruled out as the problem. If there's no improvement in a couple of weeks, I'll recombine the split and give that queen a dirt nap.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my questions. The comments have all been very helpful and informative. I'll post a follow up here in a couple of weeks. By then, I should know if the problem was the mites or the queen.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

8Ken said:


> As it turns out,* I did have enough bees to make a split after all*, so I decided to hang onto that queen until I can see what her laying pattern looks like after mites have been ruled out as the problem. If there's no improvement in a couple of weeks, I'll recombine the split and give that queen a dirt nap.


I did not want to complicate your life with any more suggestions.
You should not be thinking of "splitting".
You should be thinking of "parking the queen" (different project).
If confusing - just ignore this.

For me parking a queen is a trivial project - it only takes a scoop of bees and a foam cooler.
So the "splitting" to save a queen aside is a non-issue.
(if properly equipped, there are nearly always enough bees to go around).


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

GregB said:


> I did not want to complicate your life with any more suggestions.
> You should not be thinking of "splitting".
> You should be thinking of "parking the queen" (different project).
> If confusing - just ignore this.
> ...


Please feel free to give me all the suggestions you can think of! I'm still new at this, still making lots of mistakes and trying to figure it all out, so all information is welcome. 

Could you tell me more about "parking" a queen? I've never heard that expression before and have no idea how to go about it or when it would be appropriate.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

8Ken said:


> Please feel free to give me all the suggestions you can think of! I'm still new at this, still making lots of mistakes and trying to figure it all out, so all information is welcome.
> 
> Could you tell me more about "parking" a queen? I've never heard that expression before and have no idea how to go about it or when it would be appropriate.


Parking a queen is a trivial thing (and yet wildly underused/unknown).

But, like I said - you should be equipped for it (OR have to quickly hack up few simple things - which requires you to be handy).
You simply park the queen in a mini-nuc (which requires very little resources - then no need to be panicking about NOT having enough bees to do a split).
Sort of like so:


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

@GregB Cool! Thanks for explaining. I couldn't find anything about queen parking on the 'net. Since I had more frames of bees than I thought, I don't mind splitting, but this is great info for the future. I'd rather retire a good queen than pinch her, so this technique will come in handy. (On the other hand, the bad ones that can't be rehabilitated have to meet their maker.)


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

8Ken said:


> @GregB Cool! Thanks for explaining. I couldn't find anything about queen parking on the 'net. Since I had more frames of bees than I thought, I don't mind splitting, but this is great info for the future. I'd rather retire a good queen than pinch her, so this technique will come in handy. (On the other hand, the bad ones that can't be rehabilitated have to meet their maker.)


Too many so-called poor queens are not so poor - but rather an indication of other (even unrelated!) problems.
Not to mention that queen performance depends on what you really need from her (which is not necessarily what everyone assumes).

*Queen parking (tm)* - is really my own term.
Let me "trade mark" it right now and here.


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

GregB said:


> Too many so-called poor queens are not so poor - but rather an indication of other (even unrelated!) problems.
> Not to mention that queen performance depends on what you really need from her (which is not necessarily what everyone assumes).
> 
> *Queen parking (tm)* - is really my own term.
> Let me "trade mark" it right now and here.


I agree. If you like the idea of keeping a resource hive to support your production colonies, an old or so-so queen can go in there and continue contributing as long as she's able. I heard Dr. Jamie Ellis talking about this on his podcast and thought it sounded like a good idea. He suggests one resource nuc for every two production colonies, using it for queen replacement and to boost the population or stores in the production colonies as needed. That way, the resource nuc suffers the problems, not your honey makers. This queen may or may not be able to be rehabbed into a contributing member of the bee yard, but if she can, she may do okay as leader of the resource colony. If nothing else, she's laying just enough that maybe I could raise a new queen from her eggs and get the resource colony up to speed that way. 

The cat's out of the bag now on the queen parking thing. As far as I can tell, you're entitled to your trademark.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

8Ken said:


> That's interesting. Any idea what a "massive overdose" would be? I've heard of people with extreme mite loads treating every other day for weeks.


Sorry I can't quantify it because it depends on a bunch of factors.

As a rule, oxalic acid vapor (OAV) is very safe and can be dosed in big quantities without serious side effects. But it is not always the case.

For example, a case of 2 swarms I caught on the same day. They were of unknown origin so I hived them in a single box of foundation each, gave them a few days to settle then took a look inside, they had drawn quite a bit of new comb, and filled all of it with fresh nectar as there was a heavy nectar flow. So I vaporized 2 grams of OA into each. 3 or 4 days later I gave them both another 2 grams. A bit more than usual but the reasoning was to give them a good quantity before they had capped brood and seriously deal with any mites, if any present. That amount of OA would normally be well within the safe range for an average single box hive.

A few days after that I took a look inside, bees looking happy, had drawn nearly the whole box, and all comb filled with a shallow layer of new nectar, other than a central area with eggs. Great, I thought. Queens laying, all seems perfect. A week or so later I took another look expecting brood but no. Just heaps of eggs. Thought maybe I was seeing things at the previous look so closed up the hives. But took another look another week or so after that, and again lots of eggs, no brood at all. 

Had me totally mystified, and this situation continued for several more weeks. Eggs, but no brood. Eventually I realised what had happened. When I did the 2 OAV's, the entire comb areas were filled with newly collected nectar, and nearly all the OAV would have had nowhere to condense, than into that nectar. And so after that, was fed to the new larvae as soon as they emerged from the eggs, killing them. 

So to attempt to solve the problem I removed all the stored honey I could from the two hives and replaced with honey from other hives. At next check they had larvae, somewhat spotty, but must have been able to work their way through what remained of the contaminated honey and the brood pattern improved over time and became normal.


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

NOW you tell me, lol! 

Well, I'm glad you were able to get it sorted out, and I appreciate you telling me how you fixed it. It wouldn't surprise me to see this in my hives since there was a lot of open nectar when I fogged them. If the new queen also has a spotty pattern, this will be the first thing to rule out. 

I don't yet know for sure what caused the old queen's spotty brood pattern. I'm trying to talk myself into braving the triple-digit temperatures to go have a look at the mite drop from the fogging.


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## Dadofmykids (Jun 3, 2015)

It's been a month now and you've done a split. I usually give a new queen at least a month to get going. Don't overthink this. Put the bees in 5 frame box and leave them alone for 30 days. By then you'll probably have a booming colony that needs more space. 

I recommend a reduced entrance until they gain enough numbers to defend a larger opening.

If you're still on a flow then food resources shouldn't be a problem. Otherwise make sure they don't starve.

Regarding mites, they need brood to reproduce. If a new queen is getting ramped up, then there shouldn't be any brood for the mites. Call it a brood break. Brood breaks are common among treatment free to keep mite numbers down. 

Bottom line is I don't see a problem here. Just a new queen figuring everything out. Give them some time.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

8Ken said:


> NOW you tell me, lol!
> 
> Well, I'm glad you were able to get it sorted out, and I appreciate you telling me how you fixed it. It wouldn't surprise me to see this in my hives since there was a lot of open nectar when I fogged them. If the new queen also has a spotty pattern, this will be the first thing to rule out.
> 
> I don't yet know for sure what caused the old queen's spotty brood pattern. I'm trying to talk myself into braving the triple-digit temperatures to go have a look at the mite drop from the fogging.


I will say this - I have never seen bad side-effects of OA dribble on the brood so far.

This is my only second season doing it - but if anything, the brooding patterns only improves (for the VSH-trending bees to be clear) or there is no clear difference.
I indiscriminately apply OA to the frame sides - be it brood or nectar or bee-bread - I don't care.
(talking about 4-6ml of 2.5% OA sugar syrup solution - per a frame side)

So, it maybe there is a difference between OAV and OAD application side-affects.
When handling a nuc size colony, doing the vapor makes little sense anyway (unlike with huge production colonies).


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

@Dadofmykids Thanks for your input, but I respectfully disagree. I've had queens that took forever to get going, but they never had a shotgun pattern like this that persisted for a month. 

The split was done in an effort to save a queen who may not be responsible for the problem, while attempting to rule out other causes and sparing the rest of the colony from collapsing from attrition. The seller was giving me a replacement queen anyway, and I had a few frames to spare for a split, so why not?

I keep robber screens on my hives year round. They do a pretty good job of preventing SHB infiltration as well. 

I realize some folks use brood breaks as a TF way of temporarily blocking the mites' reproduction. Personally, I choose to treat when such an opportunity presents itself, especially since there's a chance that mites have something to do with the queen's laying pattern. 

I don't think spotty brood is normal, especially from an experienced queen who has _supposedly_ had a good pattern before. There are a lot of things that could cause a spotty pattern. I'm just trying to rule each one out and correct it if I can.


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

@GregB Please tell me more! I've never done an OAD or OAV, only fogging. Since the OA is mixed with water in my fogger, I'm not sure if it's closer to a dribble or more like vapor. 

So you dribble the OA syrup on the sides of the frames, not directly on the bees or the combs? When you say you do this indiscriminately, how often is that? If you don't use all of your mixture the day you make it, is it possible to save it for the next time? And why does vapor not make sense with nucs?


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

8Ken said:


> @GregB Please tell me more! I've never done an OAD or OAV, only fogging. Since the OA is mixed with water in my fogger, I'm not sure if it's closer to a dribble or more like vapor.
> 
> So you dribble the OA syrup on the sides of the frames, not directly on the bees or the combs? When you say you do this indiscriminately, how often is that? If you don't use all of your mixture the day you make it, is it possible to save it for the next time? And why does vapor not make sense with nucs?


I am not an authority on the subject, but rather a student.

Just google "Randy Oliver Oxalic Acid Dribble".
There is nothing new in the method - take it and use it as described by him so you understand the basics (before taking any advice from me - I do a lot of hacking).


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

As an update, the mite drop is negligible -- none at all in the vertical Lang (which is surprising since they were last treated in mid-March), and two at each end of the horizontal, which is currently a two-queen hive with the old queen at the north end, the new queen at the south, and a ventilated dummy board and a QE between them.

Maybe the shotgun brood pattern really is the queen's fault. I can't think of what else I can rule out. The bees are unusually fastidious, spending way more time cleaning and polishing than those in the vertical Lang. I guess it's possible they're removing eggs almost as soon as they're laid, but with plenty of food stores to go around, I don't know why they would do that. 

Before I pinch the queen, I'd like to see what the new queen's laying pattern looks like. If she's spotty too, then either the seller is giving me the worst queens ever or there's something wrong in the hive, something I haven't considered yet. A research paper I read found that queens with spotty brood patterns improved after a reciprocal swap with a queen with a good pattern. Interestingly, the "good" queen's pattern deteriorated after being swapped into the "bad" queen's hive. The authors of the paper had no explanation for that after testing for every cause they could think of.


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

@GregB As usual, Randy Oliver is a wealth of information. My heart sank when I read that mixing OA with water, as I do in my fogger, decreases the effectiveness because the OA needs a humectant, such as syrup or glycerine, to make the OA stick to the mites' feet. Then I read further where it said that high humidity, as we have here in the sunny South, acts as a humectant. So I guess I'm okay there, as our humidity has been between 70 - 80%. He said it's best to only use OA once a year, but later in the same article said it's okay to use it multiple times over the summer but only once in winter. 

So now that I know what Randy Oliver has to say about it, could you explain your "hacks"? I promise I won't blame you if I try it and things go sideways!  Since we're getting a little off topic, please feel free to PM me. I'll have to use OA again if I need to treat while ambient temperatures are still too hot for formic acid or thymol, which could be well into September.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

8Ken said:


> So now that I know what Randy Oliver has to say about it, could you explain your "hacks"?


Page 58 of 85.
It says - "Treatments of Nucs or Packages - A no brainer".
Slide 1 (scientificbeekeeping.com)

As I have been rattling for the last year now:

create brood-less splits/brood-breaks - treat.
catch a brood-less colony before the winter - treat.
These* two treatments per a colony per year* works for me so far.

(BUT - it works best with the bees that show some mite resistance. Regular commercial bees, while surviving this approach, don't do great - just OK).


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

@GregB Thanks so much for the link! The frames look just like Oliver's pics of a colony close to collapse, so maybe that should tell me something about the spotty brood pattern and the level of resistance to mites. At this point, I don't think it would hurt to give them another treatment (dribble this time) in a week and a third a week after that. Maybe I can pull them back from the brink. 

I'll remember this next time I'm desperate for bees at a time when they're not available from reputable breeders.


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## OLD KENTUCKY (Feb 18, 2021)

GregB said:


> So, how do you know IF the "beautiful laying pattern" actually belongs to the nuc queen?
> You don't.
> 
> 
> It is a common hack the nuc sellers insert brood frames from other hives into a quickly slapped together nuc (where the brood and the queen are not related to each other).


What you just said, is why I quit buying nucs from people I didn't know. A friend of mine, and I went to Mississippi and bought 6 nucs. We called him when we got to the little town, and told him we were there. He said to wait until in the morning to pick up the nucs, that he had a guy that was supposed to pick some up that day. When we went the next day, he said the guy didn't show up, and we could have his. He opened up the nucs, and it looked like there were plenty of bees, but when we got back to Kentucky, there was not a handful in any nuc. I never buy queens or nucs from anyone. I want local of both, so I raise my own.


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## Hayhoss (Sep 21, 2021)

In my queen rearing as part of raising out a couple dozen nucs, I have seen them do this exact thing a few times now.
They lay really well a few weeks and then completely fall apart, all the brood gets pulled out, just drones left.

I bet the guy would give you a new queen.


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

@Hayhoss You're right, he did. Now I'm waiting to see if that fixes things or if there's something else causing the spotty brood.


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

As a follow up, I may have finally identified the cause of the spotty brood from two queens sharing a long Lang hive -- SHB. I didn't know before that SHB actually eat the eggs and brood and that they puncture the cappings to lay eggs in a cell with larvae. The bees may remove a lot of those bee larvae, and all these things could result in a spotty pattern. 

SHB are a serious problem in this region, but in the past two years, I've only seen maybe five of them, all of which met my hive tool. I never had a problem with spotty brood before either. Then I picked up those new bees and have had spotty brood ever since. Now I also have a SHB problem which has become pretty serious over the past month or so. Between an extended trip out of town, followed by a few weeks of illness, I'm only now able to deal with this.

Oil traps under my screened bottom are catching and killing a lot of them. I'm also waiting to see if wintergreen oil mixed with Crisco and applied to the frames, interior entrance walls, and corners helps any. Supposedly, it both repels them and kills them on contact. We'll see. Somehow, the bees are hanging in there and dealing with these pests, so there are no slimed combs or fermented honey.

Anyway, just thought I'd throw this out there as another thing to rule out as a cause of spotty brood.


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

8Ken said:


> As a follow up, I may have finally identified the cause of the spotty brood from two queens sharing a long Lang hive -- SHB.


One year I had a lot of SHB. I ended up swapping boxes. I'd pull one frame, look it over and kill any beetles, and put it in a new, clean box. One by one through the whole hive. When I got done there were scads of beetles running around on the hive floor, made it very easy to squash them, and the bees flew away with a bunch of them once they were able to get at them. Mostly solved the problem that time. Obviously not a good solution if you have more than a handful of hives, or big hives stacked high.


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## 8Ken (May 12, 2021)

@AR1 When you had the SHB problem, did you notice it affecting your brood pattern? I don't know if I've correctly identified the cause of the problem. Even if SHB aren't responsible for the shotgun brood, they sure aren't helping any. I'll have a quick look today, but it may be another week before the brood pattern has had a chance to show improvement, if it's going to.


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

8Ken said:


> @AR1 When you had the SHB problem, did you notice it affecting your brood pattern? I don't know if I've correctly identified the cause of the problem. Even if SHB aren't responsible for the shotgun brood, they sure aren't helping any. I'll have a quick look today, but it may be another week before the brood pattern has had a chance to show improvement, if it's going to.


No, did not think to check at the time.


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## Gino45 (Apr 6, 2012)

Spotty brood caused by SHB. Hmmm. Me thinks spotty brood caused by varroa.


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## NUBE (May 24, 2009)

Have you done a mite wash 8Ken? If SHB are the problem then you likely have way bigger problems. My hives always end up with some SHB. I’ve never seen it cause problems unless they were already extremely weakened by some other issue. I saw you posted something about mites on a SBB tray after an OA fogger treatment. You’ll get much more definitive results on their infestation levels with a mite wash. All the drop will tell you is whether you killed mites or not. It won’t give you a fairly accurate idea of what your current infestation levels are (at least not a single mite drop count done after a treatment). Make sure and count the dead bees after the wash, when you do one, to ensure you had an adequate sample size.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Gino45 said:


> Spotty brood caused by SHB. Hmmm. Me thinks spotty brood caused by varroa.


Yep! I think that the condition that led to the spotty brood could have resulted in weak defenses that allowed the SHB to romp.


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