Brood?

[reedyfork]

I typically use Halloween as my deadline for feeding syrup and opening my hives and doing any sort of thorough inspections - just to make sure they are queenright and ready for winter. I have gone through all colonies now and it was WORK to find any sort of brood at all! There was absolutely zero capped brood, but I did find the queen and/or tiny patches of eggs/larvae in all.

Just curious what others have seen. I don't know that I've ever seen them shut down quite this much or this early before... Current populations seem to be good, with plenty of food resources. Should this be a source of concern (not that there would be anything to do about it) or should I consider it a blessing and a great opportunity to hit them again with OAV?

[Jacobs]

I'm glad you posted this; I've run into a few hives with absolutely no brood. The hives appear healthy and calm. I have spotted the queen in some and in others I did not. Pharmacyman's post on Varroa may contain another example of a broodless colony. I spoke with Mark Case on Saturday and asked if he was running into something similar. He did have a number of broodless colonies. He was wondering if the use of FormicPro may be involved since queens shutting down may be a side effect. I did use FormicPro on my hives in August and have used it many times in prior years. I have never had broodless hives this early before. (I can't say how broodless my hives were in December. If they were alive, I didn't break into brood areas before applying OAV.)

PLEASE post if you are running into broodless hives. Let us know what your mite treatment was or whatever else you think might be involved.

[Jacobs]

The mystery deepens. . . .I got a call this morning from one of our beekeepers looking for a queen. He had checked with Beez Needz and they did not have any. They knew of the Jacobs Home for Wayward Bees and my efforts to overwinter late absconds for emergency queens and late season bee presentations. This beekeeper runs long hives because of a health condition and did not see a queen or brood in his remaining hive. I told him about this thread on the forum board and that we needed to have another look before he tries with a new queen. There was no capped brood or larvae in his hive, but I spotted 7-8 single, well placed eggs on one patch of comb. We located the queen on that frame and marked her before closing the hive back up. No FormicPro had been used; there was an Apiguard tub in a section of the hive.

There is no way to be sure about whether his queen shut down for awhile or whether this is a supercedure queen. His original queen was not marked, but he has seen no supercedure cells in the hive. It seems more likely that the queen shut down for some reason and has just picked back up with egg laying.

Thoughts?

[reedyfork]

Interesting! This kind of makes me feel better knowing others are experiencing the same thing. I have a young beekeeper I've been mentoring, and his parents were in panic mode a couple weeks ago with this same issue (seeing no brood and assuming they were queenless). I checked behind them and finally found one small patch of eggs and young larvae...

I did not use FormicPro at all this year. I used periodic OAV as my combo sampling and treatment method, and used Apivar strips for the first time ever back in July/August. Only a couple rounds of OAV since then.

Since I put on my feeders back on Oct 1, I fed multiple rounds of 1.5:1 followed by two rounds of 2:1. All colonies sucked it down, and I have observed plenty of pollen coming in during the last month. This past weekend was admittedly the first inspections I had done since adding the feeders, but my checks towards the end of Sept were all "normal" (queen and/or eggs with all stages of brood). Not sure about the exact dates involved, but it would appear my queens generally stopped laying right around the time I started feeding (Oct 1). Those last eggs would have hatched about a week ago, and then the queens started laying again soon after that - resulting in me seeing only eggs and a few young larvae this past weekend.

[Pharmacyman]

Yes, as Jacobs said I am in this broodless club too. It seems to be widespread from these posts. I have not used any Formic Pro but both of my two remaining hives were broodless upon my October inspection. I looked for the queen, but there were so many bees on each frame of each box that I could have missed her. And in my case I was shocked to see no resources (honey, nectar, or bee bread/pollen) as well. I treated both hives with OAV post-inspection as Varroa test showed high mite count in one hive. I have been feeding 2:1 and they each suck down a quart each day. I have placed a little pollen patty on them.

They appear to be strong and I am hopeful they will make it through the winter. We will see. Is it true they will stop taking sugar water on their own when they've had enough? Should I just keep feeding?

[Jacobs]

A lot of the time, you've got to watch that they don't put sugar water in every cell where a queen might lay. I wouldn't worry too much about that where you had no resources in the hive to start with. I'd rather have them need to clear some laying space than have a strong colony starve.

[reedyfork]

If you're seeing lots of bees but no resources at this point (specifically honey/nectar), I would keep feeding 2:1 in bulk as long as the temperatures allow. And that means giving them gallons (not just quarts), depending on your feeder situation.

At some point soon you will need to stop feeding liquid so they have a chance to dry it out before winter. At that time, definitely think about adding a shim on top so you'll be prepared to add fondant, bricks, or dry sugar later this winter.