To my eye the bees looked unusual - many black and shiny with white stripes on their abdomens. Never seen anything like that here - is it a local strain? The worst case of bald brood that I ever saw was a nuc on the point of starvation; gave them some warm syrup and they capped it all. I note that there are very few bees shown - had the combs been shaken to remove them, or was the adult population very low? Best wishes Peter 52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html