Bees in observation hive absconded

[BeeMaster2]

On Saturday the observation hive was full of bees lots of honey and good looking brood. They really looked good. I was watching this hive waiting for queen cells to be started so that I could split it. This morning I looked at it and there are almost no bees in it, the bees in it are all brand new. My wife and I took it apart and the bottom 4 frames were almost all capped brood. Some of it was hatching and some of it was slimed. We gave these frames to a strong hive to cleanup the slimed sections. The top 2 frames were capped honey and the other 2 frames were honey surrounding open brood. One of them had a queen cup with a larva in it. We put these frames in a Nuc and added nurse bees to get them started and placed it next to the entrance of the observation hive that is closed. Hopefully they can raise a new queen. This queen and her mother both are good queens. Her mother is now in my Flow Hive and doing very well.
Jim

[tjc1]

Do you think that it was the sliming (SHB?) that made them leave?

[BeeMaster2]

Good question? If they left on Friday, no. If they left Monday, yes. The slime just started on Monday.
This was a packed hive. I have seen observation hives with a lot more bees that this one had but it had more bees in the hive than I have had in a long time. Usually they build up outside and then swarm, not abscond.
Jim

[eltalia]

Thanks for answering my pending question as to what "sliming" was, in terminology.
Entirely clueless on disease managment I was puzzled by
what read to me as a very fast breakdown of larvae into "mush".

I say clueless, as up until my relocation in retirement I have only had to deal with
wax moth and the occasional cockroach infestation.
Within weeks of setting up the colonies were hit with SHB and one with chalkbroad.
Under control now, the exercise told me I best get educated
on management as the day is coming Australia shares those
worldly woes.

Cheers.


Bill

[BeeMaster2]

One thing I might add. A lot of times I hear beekeepers blame absconding on mites. This hive had almost no mites. Never saw a mite on a bee in this hive (and you can see 1/2 of the bees all of the time) and I keep close tabs on what is dropped in the clean out trays and at most I would have one or two mites in the trays per week. Mostly I would find none. I am pretty certain that they didn't abscond due to mites.
Jim

[eltalia]

Hence my puzzled thought over "slimed", Sawdust.. so soon.
I was not sure what was meant by "slimed".
So I guess now it is really a question of which came first, the leaving or the sliming?
Or did the colony vacate for reasons of sliming installed, unseen?

Another question... moving slimed frames between colonies.
Is this the go in all instances or only in particular scenarios?

Cheers.

Bill

[BeeMaster2]

Hence my puzzled thought over "slimed", Sawdust.. so soon.
I was not sure what was meant by "slimed".
So I guess now it is really a question of which came first, the leaving or the sliming?
Or did the colony vacate for reasons of sliming installed, unseen?

Another question... moving slimed frames between colonies.
Is this the go in all instances or only in particular scenarios?

Cheers.

Bill

Bill,
Not sure what you mean by sliming installed.
The observation hive was untouched since I removed the previous queen because she was too strong to be in an 8 frame hive. I moved her again 5 weeks later into my  Flow Hive because she almost fooled 20 medium frames. The new queen quickly followed
Her mother and filled up this hive.
Every time I take this hive apart, the beetles own it for at least 2 days and then the bees have to clean it up and I get a big drop of beetles and larvae in the bottom. Same thing happens when I do a full inspection of my regular hives.
I check on the oil tray of hive that I added the partially slimed frames to this morning. To add the 4 frames, I added a super with 6 empty frames. The tray had a lot of trash and a lot of new wax cells. It looks like they have cleaned it out. I will open the super later this week to verify.
Jim

[eltalia]

A poor choice of wording Sawdust, in using "installed"?

Keep in mind I own nil actual experience on the topic, read plenty, but I hear "slimed"
and I automaticaly go "sacbrood"/EFB/AFB none of which I recall ever actually
sighting. The only mushy dead larvae I have ever seen enmasse were those in the
recent SHB experience I have mentioned. Bees do not seem inclined to housekeep
those cells as a priority and so it is "installed"/resident/stuck.. how (now) I have no
clue as your event was sudden and recent - in relative real time.

I guess my question now is, what does "slimed" actually describe as language use?

Cheers.

Bill

[tjc1]

We really don't have trouble with SHB up here (I see one or two rarely), so I'm taken aback by your description of how they take over any time the hive is disturbed!

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

"I guess my question now is, what does "slimed" actually describe as language use?"

The slime is a secretion (exectetement) of the small hive beetle larva.  The larva constantly excrete slim as the larva move across the frames contaminating everything the slime comes in contact with.  The word is used past tense in this case meaning the slime has already bee applied.

[eltalia]

Ahhh, got it Van, thanks.
My SHB never got to larval stage though I did have small
pockets of fermenting pollen cells... that and the beetles
found were enough to send me into a spin :-D

Cheers.

Bill

[BeeMaster2]

Bill,
In this case, we caught it just as it started. The surface of the comb looks wet. My first Nuc had an un mated queen with deformed wing virus and the beetles slimed that hive really bad. The slime was dripping from the frames.
I did a trap out thinking the bees were in a cavity behind a brick wall. Within 10 days the inside of the wall behind the brick wall was dripping with slimed honey and continued to drip for
3 weeks. After the slime comes thousands and thousands of SHB larvae dropping out of the hive.
It can bee really nasty.
Jim

[eltalia]

Bill,
In this case, we caught it just as it started. The surface of the comb looks wet. My first Nuc had an un mated queen with deformed wing virus and the beetles slimed that hive really bad. The slime was dripping from the frames.
I did a trap out thinking the bees were in a cavity behind a brick wall. Within 10 days the inside of the wall behind the brick wall was dripping with slimed honey and continued to drip for
3 weeks. After the slime comes thousands and thousands of SHB larvae dropping out of the hive.
It can bee really nasty.
Jim

...STREWTH..!! like "W0W".

Having seen YouTube with counts of 70/100 SHB in one trap
I did wonder what that extra livestock was up to.
The colony I 'fixed' is clean for three weeks now and started
with a count of 12+ with some others glued down.
Worth keeping an eye on a bit longer before I send it back to
it's owners.  You think?
I was going to ship it out this weekend.

Cheers.

Bill

[BeeMaster2]

Bill,
Most of the time if the hive has enough bees to cover the drawn comb, they can protect the hive. If the beekeeper is inspecting the hive too much, then SHB's can take over.
At a bee club officers meeting we were talking about this observation hive. One experienced Beek made up about 40 Nuc on a trailer and placed them in a field to develop queens so that he could sell them. When he came back 30 days later, every Nuc was slimed. I think this was a case of one or 2 nucs failed, were slimed and this produced several thousands of SHB's. They over loaded the other nucs and destroyed all of them.
Jim

[eltalia]

"Bill,
Most of the time if the hive has enough bees to cover the drawn comb, they can protect the hive. If the beekeeper is inspecting the hive too much, then SHB's can take over. "

[nodding]
Ye olde "repel all villians with cutlass and musket"  strategy, Sawdust :-)

Being a newcomer to this localised 'zone' of North Queensland I am now on
my toes, looking, having never seen SHB myself in one of my colonies
in many a year since first reported here - 2009 if I recall correctly.
That isolation has kept me ignorant of such things and their effects.
Got quite a lot to catch up on.
Call me weird but I find this necessity refreshing :-))

Cheers.

Bill

[BeeMaster2]

 
I wish I had your problem. It took oil trays filled for a couple of years to get the beetles under control. I was killing thousands of SHB's in every hive every month. I have been running with dry trays for several years now and the problem is building up again.
Jim

[paus]

From one saw dust maker to the original.  I use oil in my pans with great success, have you had any experience with diatomaceous earth in your pans?

[BeeMaster2]

From one saw dust maker to the original.  I use oil in my pans with great success, have you had any experience with diatomaceous earth in your pans?

I tried it. The wax moth larvae loved it. Have not used it since. I still have about 3 gallons of it in a bucket.
Jim