Guilfordbeekeepers.org

I know of 3 beekeepers, myself included, who have at least one hive with no brood at all. In each case, there is a queen that has been laying. The bees are calm and the queen is present in the hive. For me, this is only one hive, with all other hives still having continued laying by the queen.

Is anyone else seeing hives with a total shut down of brood rearing?

I checked one like that Sat. and was worried they may have gone queenless until I saw her. I gave them some feed to see if she might lay another round of eggs. The queen was marked so I know they hadn't swarmed

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I've got one very similar to that, too. It's a hive that swarmed and requeened themselves this summer, and then had a serious mite problem. I've treated them for mites 3 times with Apiguard to get the mites down. I've got a very small amount of spotty brood only on a few frames, but when I checked them yesterday, I saw eggs and a few larvae. I didn't see the queen, but the bees were very calm. I've been feeding them heavily to try to get enough stores for winter. I might have to give them a couple of honey frames over the winter if they don't get enough stores built up. I've thought about combining them, but holding off thinking they might still be recovering from mites and maybe they'll take off again in the spring. My other two hives are very strong.
Thoughts?

I'm going to have to check back in my notes. I'm not sure that I have been this deeply into hives this late in the season, so I am not sure if the greatly reduced brood pattern (with a lot of highly polished cells open and available) is normal or is a sign of trouble. I have about decided that if the number of bees look reasonable, the food stores are decent, and the foragers seem purposeful, just to let the hives go and check for food stores periodically.

Sounds to me like worried parents. If the weights are good, relax and start Xmas shopping. Forget the bees until after solstice.

BOTH OF YOU