# Strange queen loss



## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

With the nice weather, I finally got a chance to go through some of my hives. What I saw was unusual. In two of my out yards I had 3 that were queenless and 2 with runty virgins that no doubt lost their queen during winter (both throwing drones). I will occasionally lose a queen overwinter, but I've never seen this many clustered together. It has been very unusual weather, but part of me thinks there may be something else at play. I did have significant pesticide kills last August. Could these losses be somehow related?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Yep, pesticides have a bad negative affects on the bees and queens too.
So how many hive loss now? And can you combine any of them to a queen right hive
to make them stronger.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

AstroBee said:


> I did have significant pesticide kills last August. Could these losses be somehow related?


Probably related, as your problems started last autumn. Also, did you use MAQS?


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Michael Palmer said:


> Probably related, as your problems started last autumn. Also, did you use MAQS?


I did a late Fall mite count on all colonies and mite levels were very low on these colonies. I did not treat any of these colonies.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

beepro said:


> So how many hive loss now?


If I consider these 5 as pesticide losses too, then that would make about 15 hives lost to this one spray event. I talked to the farmer immediately following the losses and he told me that based upon the recommendation of the pesticide sales staff, that he mixed two very different products (he said they called this a "kicker") into his tanks and applied this to the fields. I've been keeping bees at this same location for many years, but have never seen these losses before. All losses kicked off immediately following the application of this spray and didn't follow classic pesticide related kills I've witnessed before.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Astrobee I recall that you mentioned some time ago that you take your bees to soy beans and maybe also to cotton, did this have anything to do with the pesticide problem. Just wondering where the pesticide came from.
Johno


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Absolutely. These bees were on a farm with both soy and cotton. Again, I've been doing this a long time, but this year was very different. Not completely sure if there were other factors, but the timeline of losses and the spray event are perfectly aligned.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

sounds suspicious ab. i have also have some cotton and soy within flying distance of my yards, although it's been only soy these past two seasons. i have been finding queen's failing in at least 10-15% of my colonies over the winters. it was less this year with only 1/18 found with a runty virgin similar to the ones you described. that particular one i know was a very late in the season supercedure. it's been shown that drones can infect the queen's reproductive system with damaging viruses during mating, and i wonder if the higher mite infestations late in the season might be a factor with later queens failing. can you describe how the other 10 that you lost after the spraying event went down, and were you able to sample any of the dead bees or pollen?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Astro, would you consider another out yard to get them 
away from the pesticides? Seems like this is an ongoing situation.
Is this a possible option at all?
Hate to loss all those tf bees. Any consideration to buy local
nucs, trap swarms, or buy packages to have your best local queens to 
head them?


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

squarepeg said:


> can you describe how the other 10 that you lost after the spraying event went down, and were you able to sample any of the dead bees or pollen?


The losses immediately after the spray all followed a trend of very low brood production and dwindling to the point where I had a queen and a hand full of bees. Very few dead bees at or near the hive. These losses were not like a classic pesticide kill where you find 90% of the bees dead in front of the hive. At the risk of throwing an alarm, the bees just seemed to disappear. Again, mite counts were very low and zero signs of disease. What little brood remained looked healthy. Some of these where 2014 queens too that were well mated and looked great. I did not do any sampling. The whole thing kind of caught me off guard as it progressed serially over an extended period.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

could you post the spray concoction??


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

beepro said:


> Astro, would you consider another out yard to get them
> away from the pesticides? Seems like this is an ongoing situation.
> Is this a possible option at all?
> Hate to loss all those tf bees. Any consideration to buy local
> ...


I live in cotton country, with very few options to find safe haven from pesticides. The good news is that most of my breeder colonies are still alive, so rebuilding with good proven stock is still an option. The colonies that remain all look very strong. That said, I'll be actively seeking more swarms this season to help boost my operation. 

One thing that I didn't mention, is that the 3 outyards that are on cotton & soy took the bulk of the losses, while my home yard (about 25 hives) took very few losses. My home yard is about 1/3 mile from the ag fields, where the outyards sit immediately next to the fields.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

wildbranch2007 said:


> could you post the spray concoction??


Yes, the trade name was Provoke, with the active ingredient was: Imidacloprid

The "kicker" was an organophosphate I did not get the trade name on that product nor do I know what proportions of the two were used.


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## tommyt (Aug 7, 2010)

Astro
Did the actual hive get sprayed or is this from 
Returning flight from poisoned fields 

I had my hives sprayed via blueberry pollination 
by a mentally ill (woman) farmer 
I lost 6 imeadiatly ten more in the weeks that followed 
I asked her to work with me and buy packages 
Seeing how she cost me the season 
I would cover cleaning of the wax and boxs 
She rudely said "I already paid for the Bees"


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

tommyt said:


> Did the actual hive get sprayed or is this from
> Returning flight from poisoned fields


Sorry to hear about your losses.

I can't say for sure, but the farmer, who is usually very conscientious was in a bind with weather and personal issues and had to spray at a time that was not good for the bees. I'm sure (100%) there were bees in the fields during the spray, but I can't say for sure what kind of drift occurred.


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

I had two cases where hives that were next to each other both lost queens. I'm wondering if bees from one hive whose queen had failed got discouraged and went to the next hive over in search of a queen right situation only to ball the queen next door in an attempt to replace her. In any case, one pair will be salvaged with frames of eggs while the other case the frame will be added to the top of other single deeps for them to build out.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

AstroBee said:


> Yes, the trade name was Provoke, with the active ingredient was: Imidacloprid
> 
> The "kicker" was an organophosphate I did not get the trade name on that product nor do I know what proportions of the two were used.


well that would kill about anything around, this is one of those cases where you would have rather had a faster acting pesticide to kill the bees in the field.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

wildbranch2007 said:


> well that would kill about anything around, this is one of those cases where you would have rather had a faster acting pesticide to kill the bees in the field.


Agreed. I've been hit by synthetic pyrethroids before and the kill is pretty instantaneous with not much residual (at least that's what I've observed). This was very different.


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## camero7 (Sep 21, 2009)

AstroBee said:


> The losses immediately after the spray all followed a trend of very low brood production and dwindling to the point where I had a queen and a hand full of bees. Very few dead bees at or near the hive. These losses were not like a classic pesticide kill where you find 90% of the bees dead in front of the hive. At the risk of throwing an alarm, the bees just seemed to disappear. Again, mite counts were very low and zero signs of disease. What little brood remained looked healthy. Some of these where 2014 queens too that were well mated and looked great. I did not do any sampling. The whole thing kind of caught me off guard as it progressed serially over an extended period.


Sounds like some hives I lost after pollinating apples 3 years ago. I ascribed it to fungicides mixed with pesticides being sprayed in the adjoining orchard. Hives just dwindled and died. These were very strong hives when I went into the orchard. 7-8 frames of brood.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Some time ago I saw a notice that the EPA had approved the use of a neonic of some sort for direct spraying onto cotton crops and I thought to myself that some beekeepers will suffer from the results of this practice. Direct spraying of the crop will create far higher levels of the insecticide in nectar or pollen than the seed treatment and the bees would suffer the consequences.
Johno


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

johno said:


> Some time ago I saw a notice that the EPA had approved the use of a neonic of some sort for direct spraying onto cotton crops and I thought to myself that some beekeepers will suffer from the results of this practice. Direct spraying of the crop will create far higher levels of the insecticide in nectar or pollen than the seed treatment and the bees would suffer the consequences.
> Johno


Perhaps, but keep in mind that two products were mixed together in my case. It could be that this combination is what led to the problems I observed. Also, these products were applied mid-day!!


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

AstroBee said:


> The losses immediately after the spray all followed a trend of very low brood production and dwindling to the point where I had a queen and a hand full of bees. Very few dead bees at or near the hive.


This sounds very similar to the described chronic effects of seed coating contamination that beekeepers in southern Ontario and Quebec have been experiencing. The active ingredients are neonic (clothianidin and thiamethoxam). The acute effects of a dust kill are obvious and much like a spray type kill with lost of dead foragers, often with pollen loads still on in front of the hive. The chronic effects are more like what you described. I had some unexplained dwindling in a couple of yards last fall. They also didn't want to take feed. I had already treated for mites, so I thought maybe Nosema was the problem. I sent bees for testing and there was no correlation between the yards with dwindling and spore counts. The worst yard a spore count of zero.


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