I did a partial inspection of six colonies today. One colony is very weak; low numbers. There’s some scattered capped brood but virtually all of the larva are shriveled up dead (still very white in color) and there’s even some unhatched bees that are uncapped but still very white in color. They look desiccated. I did not see any viable larvae. If this is a disease issue I presume there is no point in re-queening or adding frames from another colony. Entrance reducer is on but BF Hornets are grazing out front. I have not found anything like this in my books. Have any of you any ideas? Thanks, KJ

Hi Rick. I opened the boxes today and found them completely empty. The photos indicated robbing, but I am still confused about the white unhatched larvae and even fully formed bees that did not get out of the cells. Perhaps expired during the heatwave?

I saw these four hatched (?) queen cells. Robbing signs are obvious. The other colonies are very heavy but do not seem super high numbers. Treating with FromicPro now that temps have cooled a little.

We got no honey this year. DOA packages set us back a month (thanks Mann Lake, your response was glacial). The nucs we installed never got around to drawing out the supers. So we are just hoping to get them strong enough to overwinter.

Anonymous wrote:

…The undeveloped pupa makes me think they were abandoned mid-cycle. I'm surprised the yellow jackets left any meat in the hive. As am I

That Queen cell appears to be an Emergency replacement type and looks mutant I wonder if it was viable? What's in the Queen cell? Does it have a side opening (it looks capped)? There may be a clue there, it could be just like I said, the new queen failed. There is one closed queen cell, the other 3 in the pic appear to be Swarm type Queen cups, un-used. I did not think to look at the capped queen cell but will do so when next up there. Wednesday if not before.

So my question is did the Queen fail because of the swarm/abscond, or is the failed Queen the result of the reason they absconded. I would venture that under normal circumstances brood would not be abandoned unless it was an abscond due to some threat to the hive. It was the weakest among my six colonies, even early on. A late nuc after my package DOA’s.

I'm sort of surprised at the lack of wax moth damage. How long had it sat unattended? Was this a single hive or a bee yard hive? Where did robbers come from? There were foragers bringing pollen in two days before I discovered the empty boxes. No obvious sign of wax moth tho I suppose some eggs could be hidden in the chewed cappings debris. Robbers could have come from anywhere; the farm is surrounded by thousands of acres of forest.

Were there a lot of dead bees in the hive bottom or outside? Dead outside would indicate a battle with robbers, dead inside would be a colony health issue. No dead outside might not be a good indicator as the clean up crew doesn't leave much on the ground for very long. (A dead bee in my yard only lasts about a half day before getting hauled off to feed something.). A couple dozen dead on the screened bottom board and a few more outside that weren’t fresh. 

The volume of chewed comb was not apparent on the bottom board. There was some, of course, but it didn’t seem enough to account. Will robbers also harvest wax?

Thanks for your comments.