Uncapped Pupae

[skullring]

I was in the hive today and a saw quite a few uncapped pupae.  They were pretty well developed with antennae and nicely developed  white bee faces.  What could be the cause of this.  The hive has been coming along very well up to this point.  I do have some new day old eggs in some cells.  I also have a couple of queen cells that have been built and capped near the bottom of a couple of frames.  Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks

[doak]

Tried to post yesterday but our service has been bad county wide for twp days.
It sounds like you may have chalk brood. Can you see any of these white brood on the landing, or can you rake some out. If so, Destroy all queen cells and order a new queen.
( make sure all cells and queens) are gone before putting your new Queen in.
doak

[Mici]

doak, are you sure? i'm almost sure that with chalk brood, you would not see a pupae with antenae, because, now i'm not sure about it, but i think shalk brood affects larvae the most.

are you sure you didn't rub the frame (accidentaly) against something and caused uncapping.

[skullring]

I don't think it is chalk brood the pupae are perfectly formed and healthy looking.  I guess it is possible that I could have damaged the cappings but I don't think so.  I had done a sugar shake last week is it possible that some of these cells got sugar inside so the bees decided not to cap them?  Thanks for your help.

[annette]

I had this same thing happen to me last week, when I switched out some frames of brood for a weak hive. I noticed on the frame of brood a pupae rolled out of the cell all developed and I was wondering if all the movement caused this to happen.

Keep an eye on it, but I believe it was an isolated incident.

Annette

[doak]

I forgot, Make sure you're bees have plenty of stores during a darth.
If they run short enough the workers will remove pupae and larvae from the cells.
So I have read in books.
doak

[skullring]

yes they have plenty of honey stored.  Hopefully it is just an isolated incident.  I will take a look next weekend and see how it looks.  Thanks for the input everyone. 

[Cindi]

Skullring.  Chalkbrood looks like little shrunken mummies of bees.  They don't even resemble the bees at all.  Google that, or look at the picture that Ann posted of her hives when she went to Maine to check them.  That is chalkbrood.

I think that you have what is called "Chilled Brood".  That is when the nymph are almost fully developed, but white looking.  The bees remove the capping because they know the nymph are dead and hence you see the almost fully formed white bees.  I had a little bit of this last fall when we suddenly had a very cold snap that was out of season.  The little bees in their cells died.  I saw the bees removing these poor little girls.

Google "chilled brood".  You may see there what you are seeing in your hive.  My two cents, don't take it for all it is worth though.  Have a wonderful day, love the life you're livin'.  Cindi

[limyw]

Unless it is varroa infested, you can take it easy as bees may remove pupae for so many reasons...maybe some reasons are still unknown to us. I ever encountered where the whole combs of capped brood were opened up and cleared, but they build up colony as fast as the speed they remove the pupae....why it happened? Sorry, I have no answer.