# What am I looking at? (pics)



## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

Take a toothpick or similar and swirl it in the capped brood for about 30 seconds and slowly pull it out. If it strings out a ways it's AFB.


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## mgburton (May 12, 2012)

I tried that and it didn't string out. There isn't much capped brood there. The cell I tried it on had almost a full grown bee in there, but dead. 

What I'm about to say will probably get me banished.....

So I went back out to the hive. There were bees on the side of the hive which I assumed were robber bees. I decided that I would go ahead and take the supers off before they got emptied. I removed the top cover and there was the queen. I tried to help her back into the hive and injured her in the process.....

The bottom line is that there weren't many bees in the hive to begin with when I first checked it. The other hive is packed....

Suggestions???


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## psfred (Jul 16, 2011)

Shake the bees out since you damaged the queen, let them move to the other hive.

Store the honey and pollen after freezing it (to kill any small hive beetle or wax moth larvae) and do a split in April from the good hive.

Should have you up to two hives again quickly, and if you do a "cut down" split, won't have much impact on honey production.

My brother had a similar situation last year -- a new hive from a package that struggled all year and ended up with one of the supersedure cells from his strong hive, wintered in a single deep. Came out of spring boiling with bees and made 50 lbs of honey for us. Strong hive was dead in early May, nothing but robber bees in a deep and a half of honey and pollen.

Go figure. I think our problem was mites the previous fall, caused the number of bees to drop to levels that caused them to freeze out or just dwindle away. Might be true for you too -- look for white specs in the brood area. This is mite feces the bees didn't have enough time to clean out, and is diagnostic for mite mediated collapse.

Peter


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## mgburton (May 12, 2012)

Thanks for the quick response Peter. I found lots of specks in the brood area. I wasn't sure if it was AFB, mite droppings, or wax caps..... You can see what I'm referring to in the pictures above.

Any ideas as to why the queen would be on the top cover?
Can I harvest that honey?

Thanks in advance.....


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## cg3 (Jan 16, 2011)

Are the specks shown in the 4th photo typical mite feces?


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## Tony Teolis (Jun 27, 2011)

I had similar situation recently and ordered a home AFB test kit as well as sent sample of capped brood and dead bees to the USDA in Beltsville for free eval. Still waiting for results from USDA but home test kit revealed no AFB. Waiting ... All posted at http://todolisthome.com postes: December 28, 31 and January 6. 

Tony


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## BeeGhost (May 7, 2011)

I had similar findings in my dead out and I chalked it up to varroa mites. Uncap the dead larvae and I bet you find a few dead mites, they will be black and not red, atleast in my findings.


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## nabeehive (Oct 23, 2009)

Looks like Parasitic Mite Syndrome or PMS for short. It appears that is mite dropping on the cell walls. does not look like AFB it would smell bad and have sunken (concave) brood caps. Did you treat the bees before winter or do any mite counts prior to this? Mites transmit viruses that make bees sick that will kill a colony typically over the winter.


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## Honey-4-All (Dec 19, 2008)

Mites, mites, and more mites, Dead. Game over. NABEEHIVE is correct.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

the light colored flakey stuff in those empty cells is mite feces, and there is a lot of it there. it would be good to learn how to take mite counts, and come up with a strategy for dealing with them next year.


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## bhfury (Nov 25, 2008)

What's your bottom board look like? Do you see a lot of dead mites?


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## BeeZerk (Mar 27, 2012)

I lost 2 hives the week before Christmas. Looked very similar. Plenty of honey, pollen, nectar. Queen w/ only a few dead bees & SHB's left in hives. Cold prob killed them. Had been strong hives w/ no mite problem. A few SHB's but no serious problem there either. Many people in my area (middle SC) have talked about Fall absconding recently. I'm beginning to question if it's absconding or CCD.


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## bbrowncods (Oct 10, 2012)

Queen on top trying to keep warm.


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## Tony Teolis (Jun 27, 2011)

The results are in for dead out and they are in line with the other determinations that the Varroa destructor was responsible. http://todolisthome.com/honey-bee-hive-a-bee-disease-diagnosis/ has the report and my thoughts. Let's keep on learning.


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