# I've got a disease puzzle for you guys to think about...



## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

What mite treatment did you use and when? Did you do any mite testing?
They sure sound like mite related collapse. 
I don't know of any disease vectored by shb.


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

All my hives got apivar from early july-August. There should not be any resistance since that is the first time I used apivar. I did no mite testing but I am not seeing any dwv at all. There are hardly any bees left in the hives that have crashed to test. The bees are flying off and not returning. If it were the treatment it seems I would be seeing the problem in other yards. I have a yard within 1/4 mile of the one with the trouble with no problems so far. It is possible that they picked them up some particularly virulent mites while robbing out someone else's hive.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Any chance of critters in the one location causing problems such as skunks or ?
It sounds like the issue is location specific, perhaps something in the forage in that area?


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

The visual test for acarpis woodsii, the trachael mite, is to tear open the thorax of worker bees. The appearance of dark, almost black lines indicate the presence of mites. For nosema, treat with Fumagiin-B first, and spread a white sheet out in front of the hive. It you see numerous little dark spots on the sheet, it is probable that they have nosema apis, or nosema ceranae, or both. In either case, put 100 of the freshest deadbees you have into a box and send them to the Beltsville, Maryland national bee laboratory as soon as possible. Check their website for instructions on shipping.


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

Skunks could be a possibility and I have seen what I believe to be signs of skunk activity at some other places. One of the hives that crashed was sitting a stump about 24 inches off the ground so that would be higher than the reach of skunk. Other hives aren't showing any telltale scratching or digging in front of the hives. I have had bee yards where nearly every hive died like this but usually they were in a downward spiral by august. Whatever afflicted this apiary injected itself after I brought additional hives in in late August. I have never had an apparently healthy apiary fall apart so quickly so late.


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

I'll do the trachael mite test this afternoon. I'm working to get my hands on a microscope to look for nosema as I don't have fumagillin in supply.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

What's the capped brood look like if any is left, or do you see dead larva etc... I would suspect mites, but Apivar seems pretty solid on it's effectiveness.


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

If not mites, perhaps some type of poison..........send some off to Beltsville Bee Lab to be tested..........


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## Marcin (Jun 15, 2011)

beemandan said:


> I don't know of any disease vectored by shb.


In a recent webinar, Jaime Ellis, mentioned that researchers have reason to suspect that shb can be mechanical transporters of honeybee pathogens, but they don't believe that shb are vectors.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

If the bees are flying away and very few bees are in the hive, I'd suspect absconding or poison spray, however poison spray usually gets about 1/2 the colony - the older foraging bees. If the pollen they return with is poisoned, then the colony will collapse half, then half (more or less approximately).

Were there any dead bees left in either box?

By the way, DO isolate the equipment the suspect bees occupied. Wrap in plastic at the very least, DON'T let other bees near it until you know the problem.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

What type of bees do you keep? Are they hygienic or the local mutts?
And is there an ant problem in your area? I have read that an entire colony will just
leave if they encounter a repeatedly ant infestation. So no wax or comb got chewed out, right.
If it is poison then some bees will die in the hive and some outside the hive. If it is a mysterious
disappearance then blame it on the CCD.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Tim can you take a close up pic of whatever brood was left and post the pic?


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

I can't imagine what anyone would be spraying in Murray County GA this time of year.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

beemandan said:


> I can't imagine what anyone would be spraying in Murray County GA this time of year.


...that, and it simply dosen't sound like any pesticide poisoning I have ever seen. No smell, no "crawlers" no large sheets of unattended and dying brood and no similar symptoms among neighboring hives. My first guess will always be the most obvious.....varroa. Why? The time of year fits. The fact that the hives were moved may have exposed them to some drift and quite possibly while reorienting they may have found some weak varroa infested hives to rob out. We do our best to treat our hives in a uniform manner as well but the fact remains there are a lot of things out of a beekeepers control that make it impossible to get uniform results.


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

*Answers to a few of your questions*

Generally there is no brood or a two or three inch patch at most.
Queens are generally still in the hive with a handful of bees.
There is no sign of ant infestation.
There are no crawlers, few dead bees inside or on the ground
The bees are just gone. 
There were lots of bees in these hives in September.
The movement at the entrances was absolutely normal until robbing began to be noticed.
I am noticing that the handful of hives that appear to be heading down the same road seem to break cluster and start moving in and out of the hive earlier than the other hives. 

I am not sure that some bees are not transferring to other hives as some nearby hives seem stronger than I expect.

As far as poision, I do not know where this apiary gets water. It is located relatively near a park that might spray pesticides on its fields. There could be residual contamination in standing water nearby but that would also affect an apiary that is even close to those parks yet they are unaffected. The collapses have happened after all sources of nectar are gone. 

The only similarity in all the hives that have collapsed is that they were all very heavy and consequently were not fed in Sept and Oct like many but not all of the other hives. The problem is most concentrated one particular bee yard with only two other collapses (out of 50 or so hives) in the other three yards combined.

It looks like I'll lose eight or ten out of 85 hives to whatever is happening.

I'm going to send some bees to the lab in an effort to solve this.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

*Re: Answers to a few of your questions*



Tim B said:


> I'm going to send some bees to the lab in an effort to solve this.


Once you have the results please post them here for us.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

*Re: Answers to a few of your questions*



Tim B said:


> I am not sure that some bees are not transferring to other hives as some nearby hives seem stronger than I expect.
> It looks like I'll lose eight or ten out of 85 hives to whatever is happening. I'm going to send some bees to the lab in an effort to solve this.


Queen age?:
On the brighter side you will have more hives to start some new splits in the Spring time. I'll bet that the bee lab will not find any poison on them.
Chances are they had drifted into another hives not liking their own queen for some reasons. How old are the queens you are using on these disappearing bee hives?
And on the stronger nearby hives, are they the newly mated Fall young queens Or the older 2 years old queens? Maybe a mixture of both types?
My suspicion is that they went into the hives with the strongest young queen. During the winter months bees like to pick their strongest queen for survival of the colony. On Lauri's double queens overwinter experiments she had noticed that some clusters will went over the other side to favor their strongest queen for some reason. I have noticed that the summer bees and winter bees behaviors are very different. Summer time they have more time to make new queens on an older failing queen while during the winter time they don't have this option and rather chose not to. So instead their focus will be on winter survival on finding the most strongest queen to be with and storing lots of honey and pollen to overwinter.


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

*Re: Answers to a few of your questions*

All of the queens are this year's queens mostly hatched and mated in may and produced good brood patterns as evidenced by their ability to fill their hives in the fall flow.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

If the mites level was low on those disappearing colonies and the queens are open mated in your 
local apiary? then I would suspect there are the stronger and weaker queen bees. Do you evaluate your
queens first? How do you evaluate them before letting them head your colony? And what about your local
drone source are they good for your queens? I have read here that there are queens that are more prefer than the others 
because of their strong queen smell. Reading from Lauri's newly hatched queens sharing experience inside a roller cage for temporarily holding, she 
always hived the queens that are most preferred first. Maybe the workers know that this particular queen is going to be a good mother. 
In any ways, it is good to discover a failed hive early before the coming season to take care of the issue. Sometimes things happen to the 
bees that we may not quite understand. I would look into the queen rearing process to try to find a solution. Perhaps go for a more reputable 
stable genetic queen source. And keep on monitoring the queens to chart them out to see if this is a reoccurring event or just an isolated even at the same time
every year. Lots of detail works are needed to track them as your hives grow more.


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

*Re: Answers to a few of your questions*



Oldtimer said:


> Once you have the results please post them here for us.


samples have been sent and will report when I get results.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

*Re: Answers to a few of your questions*

Thanks, will be interesting.


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

*Results from Beltsville are in...*

The sample I sent was from a hive that had crashed from five or six frames of bees and brood in late september to around 100 bees with queen. They tested for nosema, varroa mites and nosema. They reported that "no disease or mites were detected." I would have been interested in tests to detect viruses as well. I have one more rapidly declining hive I might send samples from in an effort to be more thorough. 


It looks like most of the hives that were going to dwindle have done so and are gone at this point. I am at a loss as to the cause of this decline, especially when I have another apiary with the same number of hives with a similar mix of genetics and of hives that did and did not require supplemental feeding and some hives that were moved form the same bee yard that are very strong. The two differences is that one is in an open pasture whereas the troubled ones are in pine woods or a small clearing in pine woods and the troubled bee yard had a significantly higher load of beetles.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

*Re: Results from Beltsville are in...*

"Nosema, varroa mites and nosema" I'm taking it that was a typo and it was nosema, mites, and, something else?

What was the other one?

Yes a shame they didn't test for virus, I guess cost may be a constraint.


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

*Re: Results from Beltsville are in...*

I just realized the error. It was trachael mites.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

*Re: Results from Beltsville are in...*

Thanks for clarifying. I was hoping for some clues, never like something to end as a mystery.

But, barring further tests for other things, looks like it may be.

In particular certain viruses would have been worth a look in my opinion but costs are up there.


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

*Re: Results from Beltsville are in...*

Over the years I've seen these kinds of fall dwindling but not typically so late. I've usually attributed it something I could treat. It appears in this case there was nothing that I could do except change locations.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Like I said before it will be hard to pinpoint this unusual phenomenon. If you don't want to
relocate your best bet is to raise some resistant queens to head your Fall colony. Or get good hygienic genetic
stocks. I suspect it is the woodland fungus because at this time of the year we are harvesting mushrooms
in the forest. The diversity of microorganisms and pathogens in the forest is many more times than that of the
open crop fields. I would not change their location but to continue to raise the survivor bees that are the healthiest
can bee. Besides, you can continue to expand your apiary against the minimal loses.


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

You may be on to something re woodland fungus. There may be something in the pine woods that affects them. I had ten or so hives in this location in the spring and five or six developed debilitating cases of efb while I saw very little efb at four other locations. None of the other locations were actually in pine woods but some were within 200 yards of pine woods.


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