# Typical brood pattern for VSH queen?



## IAmTheWaterbug

I requeened in April 2015 with a VSH Italian queen from Broke-T Apiary in Mississippi. They survived our mild Los Angeles winter with no mite treatment, and they are starting to build up now. I probably have 50-100% more bees today that I did two weeks ago.

But when I look at brood frames, I see this:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3552590/VSHQueen.jpg

I was wearing a GoPro in a chest mount, and I forgot to angle the frame for the camera, but you can still see the blue-marked queen and the capped brood. 

This is pretty typical of what I see my hive. The brood frames have lots of gaps, possibly where these hygienic bees have culled infected larvae. 

Is this what other people see in their VSH hives?


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## JWChesnut

No. 

My bees, which are located 200 miles north of you, north of Point Concepcion facing the winter Pacific, have 5-8 wall-to-wall sheets of brood. If your pix is illustrative of the conditions in your hive, you have a serious problem. Likely with mites vectoring disease.

A MAQS strip placed on the hive for 24 hours will cause a mite fall, and allow you to assess the mite loading.


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## DirtyLittleSecret

How's the wax moth in your area? Treatments/controls? "bald brood" is quite often related.


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## JSL

The pattern you show can be the result of "too much" VSH expression. It is hard to tell without also being able to see some of the developing larvae as there are other things that may cause that type of pattern. Either way, a pattern like that will not result in a robust honey producing colony.

On a side note, you said the queen is an Italian VSH? She looks awfully dark for an Italian of any sort...


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## hex0rz

Imho, even if you get vsh queens you still need to do mite treatments. Look for symptoms of a mite overload, hence why the spotty brood.. But you should probably treat.

After seeing my hives collapse from mite load I will know exactly what to look for next time if it ever occurs. It gets ugly. Look for any dwv, sunken larvae, perforated cappings, mites on bees.


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## AstroBee

"Is this what other people see in their VSH hives?" No! 

You're asking a lot of us to diagnose the colony with one picture shot at an angle. Lots of unanswered questions. Is this the best brood frame in the colony? When did the colonies start building up? What are your flow conditions? Was there a broodless period in Palos Verdes, CA? If so, is this the first brood cycle? I would think that you have brood year, but I really don't know.

Assuming that this was the best frame in the colony and that you have a decent flow going on, then this colony seems very distressed. Could be a poor queen, high population of varroa still, or potentially (not likely) excessive VSH (and a host of other reasons). I haven't seen excessive VSH since the initial releases out of Glenn Aparies, so I really doubt that is what you're seeing. Besides, I'm pretty sure Johnny is open mating his bees to a pretty diverse group, so the likelihood is very low that you have excessive VSH. 

Odds are pretty good that your colony is still carrying a high level of varroa. If there's a good flow going, they might be able to out run the mites until later in the season. I think you need to do some mite testing and see where you stand. If it is mites, then they will surely fail this fall without some intervention.


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## JRG13

Or lots of mites...


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## JRG13

Perhaps lots of mites isn't the best description, but it could be mites at a threshold where the bees are removing brood. Also, it's early in the season where there could be some non uniform laying or brood death related to temperatures if the bees are stretched a little thin, I'd wait a couple weeks then take another picture and see how they look.


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## IAmTheWaterbug

AstroBee said:


> "Is this what other people see in their VSH hives?" No!
> 
> You're asking a lot of us to diagnose the colony with one picture shot at an angle. Lots of unanswered questions. Is this the best brood frame in the colony? When did the colonies start building up? What are your flow conditions? Was there a broodless period in Palos Verdes, CA? If so, is this the first brood cycle? I would think that you have brood year, but I really don't know.
> 
> Assuming that this was the best frame in the colony and that you have a decent flow going on, then this colony seems very distressed. Could be a poor queen, high population of varroa still, or potentially (not likely) excessive VSH (and a host of other reasons). I haven't seen excessive VSH since the initial releases out of Glenn Aparies, so I really doubt that is what you're seeing. Besides, I'm pretty sure Johnny is open mating his bees to a pretty diverse group, so the likelihood is very low that you have excessive VSH.
> 
> Odds are pretty good that your colony is still carrying a high level of varroa. If there's a good flow going, they might be able to out run the mites until later in the season. I think you need to do some mite testing and see where you stand. If it is mites, then they will surely fail this fall without some intervention.


Thanks to all of you for the thoughtful replies. I will find time this weekend to go back in for some better photos and a mite count. 

Yes, I think my colony is distressed for some reason. Right after my post I went to a local 4-H beekeeping meeting and saw two hives that are already capping honey in their 3rd box (deep-medium-medium) while mine are just getting starting to build their numbers a bit, and haven't filled more than 1/4 of the total volume of my deep-medium. These hives are 2/3 of a mile away, ATCF, in the same neighborhood, so they have the same climate and very roughly the same foraging opportunities. So I'm doing something wrong, and not treating for mites may be it.


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## IAmTheWaterbug

DirtyLittleSecret said:


> How's the wax moth in your area? Treatments/controls? "bald brood" is quite often related.


If I leave drawn comb out in the open it does get infested, so I know what overt moth damage looks like. I don't see any of that inside the hive, even though my hive is nearly half un-patrolled (e.g. my bottom deep is probably 2/3 covered with bees, and my top medium only 1/3). The remaining frames are fully drawn from last season, but have very little bee traffic on them right now.

So I don't see any webbing or tunnels.


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## JRG13

Broke T also uses Carni's, they typically overwinter with smaller clusters, not that you have much of a winter down there. You just need to find the trick to maintaining large populations if you want to capitalize on our early flows. Some of it is genetic, but some of it is management.


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## IAmTheWaterbug

AstroBee said:


> You're asking a lot of us to diagnose the colony with one picture shot at an angle.


I still need to go back in and take some better photos/video with the frames pointing directly at the camera, but here's my entire 12 minute inspection from which my original frame grab was taken (at around 8:40):






After having seen my neighbor's bees and reading this thread, I am apparently way too optimistic in this video!

I have MAQS in transit from Mann Lake, and I will do a mite count this weekend to determine if I need to use them now.


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## JWChesnut

IAmTheWaterbug said:


> I have MAQS in transit from Mann Lake, and I will do a mite count this weekend to determine if I need to use them now.


Caution with the MAQS in a low population hive. Despite a two box stack, it looks to be only about 5 frames of bees, so a single strip represents as much as I would dose them with. 

Do you have any sources for a nice strong frame of capped brood to boost the lagging population? Getting them over the growth hump so they can lay and care for 3 frames of eggs, will solve some of the chronic issues in the hive -- the spring bees can outgrow the parasites if they get a leg up. A weak hive has real problems with regulating and feeding.

If your local beeks have boxes like mine they might give you some blown bees to do a combine with. I am running as hard as I can to thin out my hives before they swarm -- the weeks of warm weather has really goosed up the spring build up.

Amitraz (despite being a "hard" chemical) is much gentler on little weak colonies. One can knockdown the mites without risk to the queens or brood.


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## kilocharlie

Waterbug - I'm just up in Ojai. A buddy had a colony like that last year. He treated the mites with Amitraz, quite a while AFTER the main Spring Bloom (He treated for 6 weeks in June) and still had a successful colony, only to let it swarm last week.

It appears that we still have the main part of the nectar / pollen flow ahead of us. Get it treated like JW Chesnut says, - you'll need a Structural Pest Control Board certificate to buy MAQS in California (www.pestboard.ca.gov) - a decent temporary alternative would be Amitraz, I would not use coumaphos, fluvalinate, nor any of the other wax-contaminating treatments.

There is still time to have a decent season, but you have to get on it PRONTO!

Best of luck!


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## DirtyLittleSecret

The reason I ask is because often "bald brood" is from WM larvae tunneling beneath the brood. Hence the uncapping by the hive (it doesnt necessarily look like regular WM infestation as its under the cappings). I'm betting a treatment of Bt could be of benefit if you havent already. 




IAmTheWaterbug said:


> If I leave drawn comb out in the open it does get infested, so I know what overt moth damage looks like. I don't see any of that inside the hive, even though my hive is nearly half un-patrolled (e.g. my bottom deep is probably 2/3 covered with bees, and my top medium only 1/3). The remaining frames are fully drawn from last season, but have very little bee traffic on them right now.
> 
> So I don't see any webbing or tunnels.


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## IAmTheWaterbug

kilocharlie said:


> Waterbug - I'm just up in Ojai. A buddy had a colony like that last year. He treated the mites with Amitraz, quite a while AFTER the main Spring Bloom (He treated for 6 weeks in June) and still had a successful colony, only to let it swarm last week.
> 
> It appears that we still have the main part of the nectar / pollen flow ahead of us. Get it treated like JW Chesnut says, - you'll need a Structural Pest Control Board certificate to buy MAQS in California (www.pestboard.ca.gov) - a decent temporary alternative would be Amitraz, I would not use coumaphos, fluvalinate, nor any of the other wax-contaminating treatments.
> 
> There is still time to have a decent season, but you have to get on it PRONTO!
> 
> Best of luck!


Thanks! Interesting; I was able to buy MAQS from Mann Lake without presenting any sort of certificate. It's en route from their CA distribution facility, so I assume they're not going to pull it off the truck now!

But I had originally looked into Apiguard, and Dadant says that requires a CA Grower's ID before I can purchase. 

Apivar apparently does not require any kind of certification.

I wonder what determines what does and does not need permission?


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## kilocharlie

I just saw the video. I think the whitish appearance is not as serious as I thought - it may be how the light reflected at various angles, but there may be some drass. It is not super clear in the video. 

That is one weak colony. I would feed them a pollen substitute patty until she started laying a better pattern. The video certainly did not rule out "too much" hygenic trait expression, but from the look of the frames, you probably have mites, too.

The idea to boost the colony is not a bad idea. A newspaper combine with a package or a swarm might help, especially if the additional bees benefitted from the same mite treatment.

BTW, the license required to buy MAQS is an Applicator's License from the California Structural Pest Control Board, I posted the website above. It would be a good idea for someone in a beekeeping club to have one. Cost is $55.00 per test. The test is given in 17 locations in California. Must take the test within 6 months of sending in the application. Fail the test => wait 15 days and pay again, so definitely read the information guide, and talk to someone at a pest control company who has taken the exam.


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## AstroBee

JWChesnut said:


> Caution with the MAQS in a low population hive. Despite a two box stack, it looks to be only about 5 frames of bees, so a single strip represents as much as I would dose them with.
> 
> Do you have any sources for a nice strong frame of capped brood to boost the lagging population? Getting them over the growth hump so they can lay and care for 3 frames of eggs, will solve some of the chronic issues in the hive -- the spring bees can outgrow the parasites if they get a leg up. A weak hive has real problems with regulating and feeding.
> 
> If your local beeks have boxes like mine they might give you some blown bees to do a combine with. I am running as hard as I can to thin out my hives before they swarm -- the weeks of warm weather has really goosed up the spring build up.
> 
> Amitraz (despite being a "hard" chemical) is much gentler on little weak colonies. One can knockdown the mites without risk to the queens or brood.


I agree with everything said here. However, I have zero experience with Amitraz, but I trust his guidance.

You have a VERY small colony, so mite treatments relative to published thresholds may not be applicable. That said, I still believe that you should attempt to determine if mites are present. I still suspect that they are.

On a totally separate note: a tip on manipulating frames. I like how you pulled one frame out and pushed the others to make room to safely pull the next one out. However, when you shifted things back to their original position you quickly did it frame-by-frame, even when you knew the queen was on one of those frames. Instead, I suggest that when you have that group of frames pushed up to the outside wall, (particularly when the queen is in that block of frames) that you place your hive tool at the outside wall and move all the frames back into position as a block. This prevents the frame end bars from separating and reduces the chance of pinching a queen.


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## IAmTheWaterbug

JWChesnut said:


> Caution with the MAQS in a low population hive. Despite a two box stack, it looks to be only about 5 frames of bees, so a single strip represents as much as I would dose them with.


Thank you for the warning. Yes, I was worried about this. Given that my brood nest is partly up in the upper box, would you suggest I place the single strip on the top of the top box? Or on top of the middle box as normally suggested?

Should I vent the top cover with a couple of pennies in the corners? Or do I not have to worry about that with a single strip in a deep-medium? The weather out here i projected to be in the mid- to high-70s when I plan to do this. I'll do a mite count on Saturday morning, and if they need the treatment I'll let them sit quietly for a few days and then do it on Wednesday or Thursday, depending the forecast. (Tuesday is supposed to be in the 80s [Yay, CA "Winter!"], so I don't think I want to do it then).


> Do you have any sources for a nice strong frame of capped brood to boost the lagging population? Getting them over the growth hump so they can lay and care for 3 frames of eggs, will solve some of the chronic issues in the hive -- the spring bees can outgrow the parasites if they get a leg up. A weak hive has real problems with regulating and feeding.
> 
> If your local beeks have boxes like mine they might give you some blown bees to do a combine with. I am running as hard as I can to thin out my hives before they swarm -- the weeks of warm weather has really goosed up the spring build up.


Unfortunately I don't. I don't know the beeks in the area well enough (yet) to be asking for brood frames. 

On that note, how does one transport a donated brood frame from anywhere further than across the street? Shake off the nurse bees and put in in a plastic bag? Put it in a NUC box with the nurse bees? Do nurse bees need introduction to a foreign colony? Or do they get recognized as "not a threat?"

I've got a package on order from Bill's Bees in Tujunga, so in the future I should have at least two colonies so I can share resources when necessary like this.


> Amitraz (despite being a "hard" chemical) is much gentler on little weak colonies. One can knockdown the mites without risk to the queens or brood.


Were I to do this again I would probably consider something like Apivar/Amitraz. I was a little concerned about putting it in my hive just before I hope to be getting some nectar, and the 6 weeks of treatment + 2 weeks of waiting time mean I'd have to wait until May to put supers on. But if my hive fails I'd have to wait even longer than that!

So I'll try treating with the MAQS (if necessary) and see what happens.


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## IAmTheWaterbug

AstroBee said:


> On a totally separate note: a tip on manipulating frames. I like how you pulled one frame out and pushed the others to make room to safely pull the next one out. However, when you shifted things back to their original position you quickly did it frame-by-frame, even when you knew the queen was on one of those frames. Instead, I suggest that when you have that group of frames pushed up to the outside wall, (particularly when the queen is in that block of frames) that you place your hive tool at the outside wall and move all the frames back into position as a block. This prevents the frame end bars from separating and reduces the chance of pinching a queen.


Thanks! I appreciate the advice! I just remembered the thread I started about a year ago about not squishing bees when re-inserting frames. Seems I like to ask for advice and then forget that I got it


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## IAmTheWaterbug

JSL said:


> On a side note, you said the queen is an Italian VSH? She looks awfully dark for an Italian of any sort...


I don't know how to tell the difference, other than what I was told when I bought her. When I called Johnny Thompson last year he specifically asked me to text him my order for "one VSH yellow queen," as that's how he refers to them. Yeah, she doesn't look very yellow. Maybe she got a tan.


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## Phoebee

Our VSH bees make a very nice classic brood pattern, except that the queens are very picky about laying over wires. This is not an uncommon trait, but it seems to be the absolute rule in VSH.

The varroa sensitive hygenic behavior means they do pull out pupae infested with varroa, but when they've got the problem managed, they don't have to pull out many so the resulting holes are not all that noticable. If they have spotty brood, just like any other breed, look for a problem.


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## IAmTheWaterbug

IAmTheWaterbug said:


> I still need to go back in and take some better photos/video with the frames pointing directly at the camera . . . and I will do a mite count this weekend to determine if I need to use them now.


I did a sugar shake today. The good news is I found only one mite. The bad news is that I still don't know what's going on with this colony. It appears to have more bees and more nectar than a week go (on the video I say "Feb 26" but it's actually Feb 27 today), so maybe it's just a slow colony. Someone did reply to my query last year that Broke-T's queens were "fairly lackluster" and that, in general, he'd observed:


> Basically, with the VSH, a lot of people have had issues with the bees just not building up or it takes them a long time to build up. I overwintered these in singles, they had 3-4 frames of bees come January, and two of them are still in singles, where I have other hives that were less than a frame of bees already build back up to 2 or 3 boxes.


So I shook a half cup of bees for a couple of minutes, shook out the sugar, add a few tsp more sugar, and did it again. I dissolved the sugar in water, and saw only the one mite, so to be sure I put the water through a coffee filter and laid it out. I still see only the one mite:









(full resolution, here)

Unless I'm really screwing up my sampling methodology (YouTube video uploading now. . . .) I don't have a serious mite problem right now.

So what else is slowing down my hive? Should I feed?


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## AstroBee

Have you uncapped any (day 15 ish) worker brood? A sugar roll with such a small population may not tell the whole story.


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## BadBeeKeeper

My experience with VSH is limited, beginning last Spring. And, Being a bad beekeeper, I didn't take a lot of notes so I have to rely on memory that may or may not be accurate...maybe not as accurate as it once was (What a drag it is getting old...).

2 nucs of VSH x Carni. They seemed slow to build initially, despite being given some drawn comb to work with* in the bottom of the deep when transferred. Eventually they got going and I added a second deep with some drawn comb and foundation...but when the queens ramped up, they really ramped up, and I found eggs in cells that hadn't even been fully built up yet. (This, I think, is probably what caused both to swarm- fewer drawn cells than the queens wanted to see.)

I can't say that I noticed many, or any, cells that seemed to have been uncapped and emptied prematurely either before or after swarming. Obviously, there were mites, since they showed up on the check-board despite having a brood-break due to swarming. I didn't try to estimate mite load, it was little more than a formality to decide whether to treat or not, and if treating, to see how many more dropped after treatment with FA. Again obviously, after swarming the original queens were gone so the new ones were a next generation, open mated, so who knows.

5 nucs were created with swarm cells, 4 resulted in mated queens and 1 failed completely. 2 of the 4 built up well and had good populations going into Fall, and plenty of stores. The other 2 did not build well and were very lacking in stores, for no apparent reason, they just didn't take off. These two were combined and given a super of honey, taken from one of the original VSH hives that produced a surplus (first time I have had surplus from a newly established hive).

It's not bee time here yet, so, further observations are yet to come.

*(Up to now, when transferring nucs to full hives I have always put the nuc frames in the center, and empty frames/foundation to both sides. I have been doing this for a few years now but was not particularly good at finding queens, content to let the signs tell me she was still there. However, I had to get better due to taking frames for making up nucs and experiments in OTS queen rearing- made obvious when I ended up with a queen in a box where she wasn't supposed to be.

So, in getting better in finding them I began observing their movements through the hives and eventually began to be able to predict where I would find them based on the age of brood- older to younger. Maybe more experienced keepers already know this but it was a revelation to me. At any rate, it seems to me that the queens prefer to move in a single direction (and in my general impression from West to East but this needs more careful observation before drawing a conclusion). The subsequent thought that came to me at some unknown point, was that when transferring frames from a nuc to a deep, placing the occupied frames in the center breaks up the queens' preferred pattern, and it might be better to place frames more to one side instead. I intend to investigate that hypothesis more fully this year.)


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## IAmTheWaterbug

IAmTheWaterbug said:


> Unless I'm really screwing up my sampling methodology (YouTube video uploading now. . . .) I don't have a serious mite problem right now.


YouTube video finally finished uploading:






I say "Feb 26th" on the video but it was actually Feb 27th.


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## beemandan

I was into some hives today. This frame is from one of Broke-T's 2015 queens.
Granted....they were treated for varroa.


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## clyderoad

beemandan said:


> This frame is from one of Broke-T's 2015 queens.
> Granted....they were treated for varroa.


Sweet Dan! how many frames looked like that in the hive?

Clean looking frames too, how so?


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## beemandan

clyderoad said:


> Sweet Dan! how many frames looked like that in the hive?
> 
> Clean looking frames too, how so?


Thanks.
This was a nuc started last year...which grew to a double deep....and explains the clean frames.
There were three frames like this full of capped brood and another three mostly uncapped.
The truth is that the other non VSH hives in that yard looked much the same....except one that was queenless. The queenless hive still had a quorum of bees so I took a frame of open brood from a neighboring hive to keep them busy until I get my first batch of queens next week.


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## Lauri

beemandan said:


> I was into some hives today. This frame is from one of Broke-T's 2015 queens.
> Granted....they were treated for varroa.


Nice work Broke-T and Beemandan  :applause:


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## clyderoad

well I think we can call them BOOMERS! and boomers are the honey makers we like.
good luck this season, you're off to a great start.


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## Phoebee

Wait, there's a problem with that brood pattern. There is no room in the corners for honey! Too much brood.

Honestly, if you have a number of frames like that, the poor nurses are going to be running all over for food for the bawling larvae.


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## clyderoad

Phoebee said:


> Wait, there's a problem with that brood pattern. There is no room in the corners for honey! Too much brood.
> 
> Honestly, if you have a number of frames like that, the poor nurses are going to be running all over for food for the bawling larvae.


 honestly, maybe the bees know best with this.


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## Phoebee

clyderoad said:


> honestly, maybe the bees know best with this.


No doubt, but they never explain their thoughts to me, aside from occasionally telling me to mind my own business.


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## SRatcliff

A lot of people say they like Broke T's queens, and I believe they are VSH. Then we have another thread with JWChesnut saying he has a whole apiary of VSH queens with shotty brood and poor clusters. How do we sort this out?


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## beemandan

SRatcliff said:


> How do we sort this out?


Just my opinion....
VSH queens will probably not perform well in a totally treatment free environment. On the other hand, a VSH colony that starts the season out with a small mite population should maintain a slower growth rate of that population. If they do so, then the bees in that colony will have more energy and vigor to use for their own purposes instead of supporting a large population of parasites. 
I got ten queens from Broke-T last season. I've treated them the same as my other hives. All of my hives should now be starting the season in similar shape. By the end of the season, time permitting, I hope to compare the infestation levels.


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## Lauri

Phoebee said:


> aside from occasionally telling me to mind my own business.


HA! I love that.

Someone should make a sign for the bee yard.

" Mind you own Beesness"

"Oh S***, not you again" 

would also a good one for hive decoration


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## AstroBee

SRatcliff said:


> Then we have another thread with JWChesnut saying he has a whole apiary of VSH queens with shotty brood and poor clusters. How do we sort this out?


I too have lots of VSH queens (50 - 60 colonies), and almost never see poor brood patterns. I've spoke on this at length numerous times here. I very rarely treat, and if I do, it is a surgical treatment not apiary wide. That said, I am pretty isolated from others, so there is a low flux of mites into my area. However, if I bring in package bees they very quickly (less than 2 years) fail due to mites. I suspect in addition to genetics and local conditions, that the local varroa populations has a lot to do with the variability seen by users.


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## beemandan

AstroBee said:


> I too have lots of VSH queens (50 - 60 colonies)


Where do your vsh queens come from?


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## AstroBee

beemandan said:


> Where do your vsh queens come from?


A diverse group. Old Glenn stock, Harbo stock, and semen directly from the USDA.

...Plus some stock that just managed to survive without treatments for many years.


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## IAmTheWaterbug

beemandan said:


> I was into some hives today. This frame is from one of Broke-T's 2015 queens.
> Granted....they were treated for varroa.


That's one awesome looking brood frame. I'm going to show this to my queen and have a little discussion about her work ethic.

OP here; regarding mites, I did another sugar shake this weekend and counted exactly 0.0 mites in my half cup of bees.

The colony seems to be growing, but slowly.

Now that I have enough bees to support the loss, next weekend I'm going to do another sugar shake, followed by an alcohol wash of the same bees. This should tell me if my sugar shake technique is horribly incorrect.

Assuming it isn't, I'm pretty sure I don't have a significant infestation of adult mites.

So that leaves poor beekeeping as the problem.


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## AstroBee

IAmTheWaterbug said:


> Now that I have enough bees to support the loss, next weekend I'm going to do another sugar shake, followed by an alcohol wash of the same bees. This should tell me if my sugar shake technique is horribly incorrect.
> 
> Assuming it isn't, I'm pretty sure I don't have a significant infestation of adult mites.


I don't believe that you need to do an alcohol wash to confirm your sugar shake (unless you're totally messing it up). See:https://www.mannlakeltd.com/publications/PSsampling.pdf A slight tweak to this reference is to to leave the bees sit for about 3 minutes after the first shake and prior to dumping out the sugar. Sure, if you're trying to get a better more repeatable number then yes, alcohol wash, but (I believe) what you're seeking is a ballpark number. 

I'll ask again, please uncap some worker brood and pull out the (white) pupae to examine them for mites. Pick out 20 or so, targeting pink-eyed brood (See slide 3 from the above reference)


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## JRG13

I will only say this, I tried 3 queens from Broke T in 2014, received first week of May I believe, and I'm the one who told the OP they were fairly lackluster and their experience is pretty much what I saw in all 3 queens. Perhaps it's their Carni background or our area, but they were very slow in building up, even with a spring Apivar treatment which helped somewhat but they just never seemed to hit that explosive growth rate, and 2015 spring started in January which was record high temps here and I had 6-7 framers in December filling 3 deeps and a medium of bees by mid March, where these queens over wintered with 3-5 frames of bees and were maybe 4-5 frames come March. They always looked good though, nice bees, good looking queens, good brood patterns, but just never took off. I know a lot of people have good luck with Johnny's queens, I was hoping the same, but it just didn't work out, think there's one left out of the original 3 now, and a split I made didn't make it either. They got Apivar in fall as well. I may try some more in the future, Johnny was great to order from and I support a lot of the Beesource members as much as I can as far as ordering queens and products, will probably just have to manage them differently or put them in a little more productive area and see how they do there.


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## IAmTheWaterbug

AstroBee said:


> I don't believe that you need to do an alcohol wash to confirm your sugar shake (*unless you're totally messing it up*).


That's what I'm trying to find out 



> I'll ask again, please uncap some worker brood and pull out the (white) pupae to examine them for mites. Pick out 20 or so, targeting pink-eyed brood (See slide 3 from the above reference)


Yes, I'll do that, too. I feel really bad about killing babies, but I have to keep telling myself "it's for the good of the hive."

There's no drone brood yet; otherwise I'd feel less bad about doing them in.

How do I tell how old the brood are when looking at capped brood?


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## AstroBee

IAmTheWaterbug said:


> I feel really bad about killing babies, but I have to keep telling myself "it's for the good of the hive."


Yes, but with the alcohol wash you're planning to kill 300 bees, which is probably 5% of your total population. Besides, the alcohol wash sample bees are taken from the brood chamber, which are the most valuable during build-up. From the looks of your colony, you need every bee to contribute. I save shakes/washes until late summer when populations are large and you can expect a good number of phoretic mites.


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## kilocharlie

On the topic of varying brood patterns for VSH queens.... degree of expression AND number of mites present tend to cause rather dramatic differences in how much brood is "shot".

Combining VSH trait with IPM techniques is likely to give you a sustainable apiary, if you keep on top of things. As soon as mite evidence appears, do at least a minimal treatment or 2 for the mites. Add a drone frame, powder sugar treat them. 

If the mites get up to unacceptable levels (mite drop > 5), use a semi-harsh treatment. On August 15th, bomb them with something wicked. DON'T let those varroa get a good foothold.

The goal is to never let the pattern get as bad as the appearance of the original photo.


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## AstroBee

I put together this thread http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?322215-What-I-expect-from-my-VSH-bees partially to help you see what good VSH bees should look like. Hope this helps.


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## IAmTheWaterbug

AstroBee said:


> I put together this thread http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?322215-What-I-expect-from-my-VSH-bees partially to help you see what good VSH bees should look like. Hope this helps.


Thanks! 

I registered my hive with Los Angeles County last week, so today the Ag inspector paid me a visit. I didn't wear my camera, so I can't show you, but things do seem to be improving slightly. I had a few frames that were fuller with capped brood, and certainly fuller than any of the frames in the videos I've posted so far. They still had some holes, but the pattern was more solid.

I can't find my uncapping fork, so I didn't skewer any larvae, but I think I know where I put it, so I can do that next time I go in, which will probably be next weekend. 

But the Ag inspector didn't see any signs of SHB or moth infestation, and based on my sugar shake counts and the descriptions, he doesn't think I have a serious mite problem or excessive hygienic behavior. 

So we're back to just having a slow queen. Maybe. 

I'm hoping to catch a swarm soon, and I have two packages from two different No. Cal. breeders showing up in April, so then I'll have 3-4 colonies to compare.


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## beemandan

IAmTheWaterbug said:


> based on my sugar shake counts and the descriptions, he doesn't think I have a serious mite problem or excessive hygienic behavior.


 Heck...it sounds to me like he could've conducted the inspection over the phone..


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## IAmTheWaterbug

beemandan said:


> Heck...it sounds to me like he could've conducted the inspection over the phone..


Well he did inspect all my frames to look for moth and SHB infestation, and he looked in front of my hive to look for discarded brood, and he looked at my bees for DWV. I described my sugar shake to him, and he didn't find any fault with it. So it was more than just taking my word for it.

But I do wish I'd found my fork before the inspection.


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## kilocharlie

Waterbug - 

It does look like a pretty good year is shaping up here in SoCal. You might want to newspaper combine a package over them ASAP, just to take full advantage of a good year. We just came through 4 very dry years. JUMP on it!


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## IAmTheWaterbug

kilocharlie said:


> Waterbug -
> 
> It does look like a pretty good year is shaping up here in SoCal. You might want to newspaper combine a package over them ASAP, just to take full advantage of a good year. We just came through 4 very dry years. JUMP on it!


I have a package arriving in Newhall on April 17th and then another arriving in Santa Monica on April 30th.

I'll consider combining this colony with one of the others, but I might also just keep it separate, as a sort of science project. I deliberately ordered those two forthcoming packages from different breeders so that I'd have some genetic diversity in my apiary (does 3 colonies qualify as an apiary?).

If I am successful in catching a swarm I might combine that with my existing hive instead.

So many decisions to make!


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## kilocharlie

I'm just hoping it does not dry out by then...I'd be running around buying bees to add, maybe pop in a queen laying a better pattern and be done with it. We don't get very many years this good around here. I'd hate to miss the peak of the Spring.

If there are any more late rains, we may get sage, buckwheat, sumacs, and rabbit brush. You'll still get increase off that if it happens. I would want the bees poised to take full advantage of it. Orrange is busting out right now, and many avocado - I'd want mine at 2 deeps with 2 honey boxes on them .... *NOW*.


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## IAmTheWaterbug

kilocharlie said:


> I'm just hoping it does not dry out by then...I'd be running around buying bees to add, maybe pop in a queen laying a better pattern and be done with it. We don't get very many years this good around here. I'd hate to miss the peak of the Spring.
> 
> If there are any more late rains, we may get sage, buckwheat, sumacs, and rabbit brush. You'll still get increase off that if it happens. I would want the bees poised to take full advantage of it. Orrange is busting out right now, and many avocado - I'd want mine at 2 deeps with 2 honey boxes on them .... *NOW*.


Where can one buy a package in Los Angeles these days? I'm not well plugged in to the beekeeping community here, so I bought from the only people I know (Bill's Bees in Tujunga), and later found Beekeeper Mike online. The 17th and 30th are the earliest/only pickup dates they offer.


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## JRG13

Any updates? Here's where I'm at... lost 2 of 3 original queens from my 2014 order from Johnnny and one daughter. One of the original queens is now going gangbusters in her third laying year.


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## IAmTheWaterbug

Yes and no. I last inspected my original colony a week ago, and it was still stuck in neutral. There are eggs, larvae, and capped brood, but not a lot. 

But in the interim I also trapped a swarm and caught a swarm, so I now have 3 colonies to compare and contrast. I briefly considered combining one of them with my colony, but I didn't have time before leaving on my 10-day trip, and there's still the science experiment to consider. 

I'll do a 3-hive inspection after I get back on the 10th. If I can do it during the week I should see lots of capped brood. If it has to wait until that weekend it'll have been 20 and 23 days, respectively, since hiving these two swarms into boxes with at least one drawn deep frame, so I might have emerging bees by that time.

I'll also bee picking up the first of my two purchased packages that Sunday, so I'll have lots of bee genetics to compare.


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## IAmTheWaterbug

JRG13 said:


> Any updates? Here's where I'm at... lost 2 of 3 original queens from my 2014 order from Johnnny and one daughter. One of the original queens is now going gangbusters in her third laying year.


I inspected today, and they're still in neutral. Not dying, but not thriving, either:






But I trapped a feral swarm on March 24, and 19 days later it's booming. By this weekend that trapped swarm should be much larger than this 2 year old colony. Maybe I just have a poorly mated queen.

I'm due to pick up a package from Bill's Bees on April 29th. If this colony hasn't done any better by then I might consider getting a new queen from Bill. His queens are also VSH.


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## AstroBee

This colony is improving, but progress is VERY slow. I agree that requeening is probably in order. 

Here are a few observations I had during your video.

1)* Drone comb:* There is a lots of drone comb available, which I find counterproductive for such a small struggling colony. They are forced to spread out their broodnest to avoid drone comb. They realize that they are not fit enough to need drones yet, and therefore it becomes more of an obstacle in their early development. Also, lots of wonky comb in this hive too. You might be well served to cut some out and try again using a big swarm. 

2) *Real Estate:* This colony has too much real estate for the population. Colonies often do better when the available space in consistent with their population. However, they are too spread out now to really fix this issue. Keep this in mind in the future. If you were in the south, SHB would make you pay for this excess.

3) *Smoking Technique:* I realize that you're very familiar with this small colony, but once you've got a monster colony (any big colony) you're going to need a slight tweak to your smoking technique. In your video, you popped the top and then used smoke at the top. Proper technique is smoke at the entrance, wait a minute, then gently pop the top with smoke applied. In addition, you're probably using too much smoke during inspection and closing. 

Just trying to provide some guidance to help you down the road.


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## IAmTheWaterbug

AstroBee said:


> This colony is improving, but progress is VERY slow. I agree that requeening is probably in order.
> 
> Here are a few observations I had during your video.
> 
> 1)* Drone comb:* There is a lots of drone comb available, which I find counterproductive for such a small struggling colony. They are forced to spread out their broodnest to avoid drone comb. They realize that they are not fit enough to need drones yet, and therefore it becomes more of an obstacle in their early development. Also, lots of wonky comb in this hive too. You might be well served to cut some out and try again using a big swarm.
> 
> 2) *Real Estate:* This colony has too much real estate for the population. Colonies often do better when the available space in consistent with their population. However, they are too spread out now to really fix this issue. Keep this in mind in the future. If you were in the south, SHB would make you pay for this excess.
> 
> 3) *Smoking Technique:* I realize that you're very familiar with this small colony, but once you've got a monster colony (any big colony) you're going to need a slight tweak to your smoking technique. In your video, you popped the top and then used smoke at the top. Proper technique is smoke at the entrance, wait a minute, then gently pop the top with smoke applied. In addition, you're probably using too much smoke during inspection and closing.
> 
> Just trying to provide some guidance to help you down the road.


Thanks for the advice! I really appreciate the time everyone's put into diagnosing my little colony.

Regarding 1 and 2, yeah, I'm not sure what I can do about it at this point. The brood nest is spread between the bottom deep and the upper medium, so I can't squeeze them into one box. The wonky comb is from the original cutout, 2 years ago. If/when I get this colony going again I might cut out some of the worst of it and see if they'll build some straight comb instead.

Yes, I did put a puff in the entrance about 2 minutes before I opened the lid. I usually do that, and use the minute to zip my suit and put on my gloves. But today I was having trouble with the neck zipper because it got tangled in my GoPro strap, and I didn't think everyone wanted to watch/listen to 2 minutes of me swearing at my suit, so I edited that part out .

I could go lighter on the smoke, though; I'll try that next time I go in.

In related news, I stopped by Pierce Beekeeping today to buy some woodenware, and the guy there listened to my tale of woe and suggested that this might be EFB. I hadn't looked too closely at my larvae to see if they have the classic symptoms, but the scattershot brood pattern and the new-larvae-right-next-to-capped-brood pattern is consistent, no?

He sold me some terramycin for $13 and suggested I treat immediately.


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## JRG13

Just look at the larva, if they're nice bright white, it's not efb, but if you see some yellow larva or yellow royal jelly in cells, that's a dead give away. What you're showing is exactly how my queens from Broke-T looked, except the only surviving one is doing pretty well this year for some reason, and yes, she's marked so I know it's still the same queen.


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## Redneck

JSL said:


> The pattern you show can be the result of "too much" VSH expression. It is hard to tell without also being able to see some of the developing larvae as there are other things that may cause that type of pattern. Either way, a pattern like that will not result in a robust honey producing colony.
> 
> On a side note, you said the queen is an Italian VSH? She looks awfully dark for an Italian of any sort...


I agree that the queen looks like a carniolan to me, also I see a lot of drone cells. You may want to start a comb rotation. In the past it was two frames each year, but now some say that we might go to three frames a year, because of so much contaminated wax.


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## BadBeeKeeper

IAmTheWaterbug said:


> He sold me some terramycin for $13 and suggested I treat immediately.


In addition to what JRG said, use your nose...although with all the sniffling you were doing, maybe it isn't working so well? If you have a significant infection, if you have a decent sniffer that is working you should be able to smell it...that's why it's called 'foul' brood.

With no nectar being stored, I would feed this hive.


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## IAmTheWaterbug

BadBeeKeeper said:


> In addition to what JRG said, use your nose...although with all the sniffling you were doing, maybe it isn't working so well? If you have a significant infection, if you have a decent sniffer that is working you should be able to smell it...that's why it's called 'foul' brood.
> 
> With no nectar being stored, I would feed this hive.


Yeah, I didn't smell anything, but I did have a stuffy nose (thanks for noticing!), and I wasn't thinking about sniffing anyway. I'm going back into the hive on Sunday, so I'll make a note to sniff!

Then again, if hygienic bees are pulling the diseased brood out quickly, maybe there wouldn't be as much smell. ???

I put a dose of terramycin on last night, but I didn't inspect or anything because I needed to get in and out very quickly. 

I also put a quart of 1:1 on the hive.

On Sunday I'll dose them again (4 days), and then I leave town for 12 days. If I can't find a friend to give the 3rd dose 4-5 days later, will a 3rd dose 12 days later be enough? Or should I put a 4th dose on on Day 16 or 17?


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## IAmTheWaterbug

******* said:


> I agree that the queen looks like a carniolan to me, also I see a lot of drone cells. You may want to start a comb rotation. In the past it was two frames each year, but now some say that we might go to three frames a year, because of so much contaminated wax.


Yeah, others have noted the same thing, but I specifically ordered a "yellow" queen from Broke-T. Maybe he mixed up the shipment. In any case I don't know enough yet to tell the difference!

Does comb rotation do anything if I've never treated this colony for anything? The old comb is from the 2014 cutout, so there shouldn't be any contamination, unless it's from the environment.


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## BadBeeKeeper

> On Sunday I'll dose them again (4 days), and then I leave town for 12 days. If I can't find a friend to give the 3rd dose 4-5 days later, will a 3rd dose 12 days later be enough? Or should I put a 4th dose on on Day 16 or 17?


I'm not sure what the dosing schedule is supposed to be for Terramycin, but based on what I *do* know about antibiotics I believe that a gap in the dosing like that may do more harm than good, *if* there actually is an infection.

But if you've already given the first dose, then stopping would be even worse, so you'll just have to do the best you can, and really try to get that friend to do it for you.


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## IAmTheWaterbug

Recommended dosing is three times, 4-5 days apart. I do have a newbee coming to my house tomorrow. I'll show him how I administer the 2nd dose and see if we all feel comfortable with him coming back to do the 3rd.


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