During the past season we had a major problem in breeding queens.
There may be a connection to insectizides/fungizides used in rape.
However a virus (e.g. BQCV) may also be a cause to the problem.
So far we have not got a clue - so I am posting it here.

We processed everything exactly the same way as usual. We had good
weather and good nectar flow mainly from rape seed.
We started off with 90 cells cups with larvae. About 60 queen cells
were capped in time. They day before they were supposed to hatch the
cells where placed into small queenless colonies (2 combes with bees)
with mostly capped brood.
So far so good.

But now only 30 queens hatched in time. A few others about 2 days
later. They were very slowly moving - a bit like being drunk.
(they "disappeared" later on)
We opened the unhatched cells and we found mostly white unfinished queens
sometimes with some black/brownish spots . From the 30 queens hatched only
24 got into laying proper eggs.

Luckily we got spare cells from a bee keeper in the area to make up
for some of the loss. At that time he did not have those problems.
The queens did hatsch in time. However during his next cycle of
raising queens he saw the same problem even worse.

Does any one have seen similar things ? What can we do to avoid it
happening again ?

Best regards

Albrecht