After the Mites

[Beeboy01]

Just did a quick inspection on the hives and think one is in trouble. Here's what is happening, the hive was started from a nuc last year and did well but I didn't treat for mites till early January after spotting crinkled winged bees on the ground around the hive. I treated with Apivar strips as directed on the package and got a large mite kill which finally tapered out after three weeks. The other two hives had a small mite drop over the same three weeks.
    I pulled the strips today after a 4 week dwell and two of the hives have brood while the one hive that had the bad mite problem didn't have any brood at all, not even drone brood. When I stared the treatment the hive had brood present. I pulled the Apivar strips early because it looks like a honey flow has started.
  I'm wondering if the extra stress of mites along with the Apivar treatment shut down the queen or the other option is that I've lost the queen. It's still early to get queens locally which would be my next step so I'm a little stumped.
  I'm hoping that the queen is still alive and will start laying again but I'm not optimistic. I'm planning to call around looking for a queen and checking the hive in about a week looking for young brood.
  Any other ideas would be appreciated.
 

[cao]

A frame of brood from one of your other hives will tell you if you have a queen or not.  If no queen they will have larva to build queen cells from.  If nothing else the extra brood will bolster the numbers in that hive.

[beepro]

An idea I have is for this hive to make a new queen.   Just put a frame or 2 of bees with
eggs and young larvae from another strong hive into the weak hive.   They should start some
QCs if this hive is indeed queen less now.    And if they don't make any QCs it might be that the
old queen is still alive.    You might want to do a thorough hive inspection just to be sure.

[BeeMaster2]

I also would go with adding a frame or two of eggs.
It won't hurt but if it is queen less, they can make a queen.
Jim

[Beeboy01]

I'm planning on a complete inspection over the weekend. Going to leave the hive alone till then so if there is a queen she can start laying again. Spotted some pollen being brought into the hive while watching the entrance yesterday.
  Don't think the hive absconded because the hive is still full of bees. Also when I opened the hive I didn't get the queenless roar that hives make when in trouble.
  Adding a frame or two of brood is already in the plans for the weekend inspection.

[Dallasbeek]

I think if pollen is coming in, you have something laying.  Question in my mind is whether laying workers would cause foraging bees to bring in pollen.

[little john]

I think if pollen is coming in, you have something laying. 

Maybe, but not necessarily ...

I run two queenless starter-finishers all season long, and those girls constantly bring pollen in by the shed-load.  I assume they do this in anticipation of 'something laying' ?
LJ

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Lil John, hey Buddy.

How do you prevent the laying worker syndrome?  Do you rotate nurse bees?
I use cloak board method, so my queen rearing hive is queen right.  However I have considered your method, a many time.
Blessings

[eltalia]

Lil John, hey Buddy.

How do you prevent the laying worker syndrome?  Do you rotate nurse bees?
I use cloak board method, so my queen rearing hive is queen right.  However I have considered your method, a many time.
Blessings

Those colonys are constantly in a state of morph so true queenlessness
required to bring on LW syndrome does not eventuate... same reason for
the pollen carriage. A truly queenless colony does not carry pollen, they
backfill... like mad things. That changes when LW begins, a process that
takes weeks.

Bill

[little john]

Lil John, hey Buddy.

How do you prevent the laying worker syndrome?  Do you rotate nurse bees?
I use cloak board method, so my queen rearing hive is queen right.  However I have considered your method, a many time.
Blessings

Hi Van
Each hive is given a frame of open brood at weekly or (at the latest) bi-weekly intervals, primarily in order to top-up the workforce, but doing this also stops the formation of laying workers.  In practice, I find that weekly donations usually result in over-crowding by around mid-season - but removing a frame of nurse bees easily solves that.

The Cloake Board is an excellent method, I also run one using a turntable to rotate the hive - saves a lot of hassle !
LJ

Just seen Bill's post - my queenless hives bring in pollen by the bucketful (which is just as well as they're creating queens, as well as feeding open brood !) - maybe they haven't studied the manual very carefully ?

[beepro]

They will gather extra nectar and pollen in case of a dearth.   If it is a LWs hive later on the
extra pollen will be use to feed the drone larvae.   If not they will be use to feed the regular
worker larvae later on.   Other than carbs the workers will use the pollen too as a protein source.

[Beeboy01]

Here's a followup, the hive is on it's last legs with SHB larva dropping into the tray. I'm doing a tear down tomorrow and see if anything is salvageable but I'm not optimistic. Currently the hive is two deeps with a shallow on top. I'll try shrinking it down to one deep and see what happens. 
  Getting tired of loosing hives!

[Bush_84]

Lil John, hey Buddy.

How do you prevent the laying worker syndrome?  Do you rotate nurse bees?
I use cloak board method, so my queen rearing hive is queen right.  However I have considered your method, a many time.
Blessings

Those colonys are constantly in a state of morph so true queenlessness
required to bring on LW syndrome does not eventuate... same reason for
the pollen carriage. A truly queenless colony does not carry pollen, they
backfill... like mad things. That changes when LW begins, a process that
takes weeks.

Bill

This is what I thought as well (pertaining to laying worker taking weeks). That is until I developed a laying worker hive in less than a week with a caged queen installed. I?m assuming it was a fluke.

[BeeMaster2]

Beeboy,
When you open that hive, you will need to remove all sections of comb that are infested with SHB larvae. I had one Nuc that had 2 placticell frames with thousands of larvae on one side of each. I wanted to save as much brood as possible so I scraped the comb off the infected sides and saved the Nuc. Hope this helps.
Jim

[Beeboy01]

Here's a kick, I just finished inspecting the hive, pulled all but four frames and couldn't spot any SHB larva in the hive but there still some in the tray. The hive looks strong with the 4 frames I didn't pull loaded with brood which is why I left them alone. The bees were gentle even though it's windy and in the lower 60's. Since the bees were in the top deep I rotated it with the bottom deep putting the brood in the bottom of the hive. If I get a chance I rotate the deeps this time of year giving the bees free space to work up into. Seems to work most of the time and helps to cull out any old frames.
  Supered up my other two hives, a bit early but I'm out of town for the next two weeks and want to get the ducks in a row.  Have one hive that looks like I'll need to split when I get back.
  Still wondering about that #3 hive but am a but more optimistic now. They are even bring in honey!