I have had a few instances this spring of hives in a single area that at first
appeared to overwinter well: Plenty of capped brood, lot of bees in late March.
Later however, the queens stopped laying, or at least significantly declined in
their laying activity, such that some within a month the hive had a negligle
cluster, small brood chamber with, in some cases, multiple eggs per cell and
some apparently dead (holes in caps) brood.  No sign of AFB or EFB - either
sticky or stringy residue, or odor.  Queen was present, but no doing much of
anything. Hives were no aggressive, no signs of queen cells.
/C.Crowell New Jersey

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