Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: Understudy on January 11, 2006, 06:22:18 pm

Title: Bees flying off with Pupae
Post by: Understudy on January 11, 2006, 06:22:18 pm

You know I could sit for hours and watch this hive.
I saw something very interesting. There were bees coming out of the hive.
Those bees were carrying pupae  White pupae  that were not alive. At least not when I got to look at them.  I know the hive has no queen. I know things are out of wack with it.  I am just wondering if these pupae were bad or they are making room to make a new queen or something else.

I saw it happen three times inside of an hour.

Sorry no pics on this one.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

Title: Bees flying off with Pupae
Post by: TwT on January 11, 2006, 07:35:09 pm

don't give up yet, you might have a queen, she could have been in the boat when you went back and she could have been in that cluster on the ground, the brood might have been chilled brood or brood that died in the removal and the bee's are just cleaning out the cells, it happens.

Title: Bees flying off with Pupae
Post by: Michael Bush on January 11, 2006, 09:09:54 pm

Hygenic bees will remove healthy looking pupae when they are infested with mites or something else you can't see.  They also do this when there is not enough stores to support the population and when the brood gets chilled and dies.  It's pretty normal to see this.

Title: Re: Bees flying off with Pupae
Post by: FordGuy on January 12, 2006, 10:43:34 pm

Quote from: Understudy

You know I could sit for hours and watch this hive.
I saw something very interesting. There were bees coming out of the hive.
Those bees were carrying pupae  White pupae  that were not alive. At least not when I got to look at them.  I know the hive has no queen. I know things are out of wack with it.  I am just wondering if these pupae were bad or they are making room to make a new queen or something else.

I saw it happen three times inside of an hour.

Sorry no pics on this one.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

don't rule out the possibility they are discarding wax moth larva

Title: You are out, you too , and you
Post by: Understudy on January 12, 2006, 10:54:27 pm

No they are definitley bee pupae. There are about 30-50 of them on the plywood.  Definitley bee bodies.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

Title: Bees flying off with Pupae
Post by: amymcg on January 13, 2006, 08:39:37 am

That's not a bad sign.  Removing dead pupae or damaged pupae is a good thing.  Wait a week then go in the hive and see if you have any eggs, larvae or queen cells.

If you dont' have any of those, you may want to order a queen.

Good luck

Title: Bees flying off with Pupae
Post by: Michael Bush on January 14, 2006, 01:53:01 pm

>That's not a bad sign. Removing dead pupae or damaged pupae is a good thing.

I agree.  It's the bees doing their job.

> Wait a week then go in the hive and see if you have any eggs, larvae or queen cells.

But this time of year there may not be eggs an larvae.

Title: Bees flying off with Pupae
Post by: amymcg on January 14, 2006, 08:56:29 pm

We should ask another Florida beekeeper. . .

Anybody else from Florida? Do your bees raise brood all year?