>>Why are all the queen problems happening since we started putting
chemicals in bee hives...
Chemicals of all sorts have an effect... I removed this summer one
feral colony from a location that had had bees before and had been
sprayed with a hornet spray years earlier. This colony was from a
spring swarm. The colony numbers were not bad, there was no worker
brood at all and only some last emerging drone brood. I figured they
had lost their queen...
I shook all the vac'ed bees into a bee hive and checked them frame by
frame 2 days later. I was a little surprised to find a virgin queen
on aframe. She *looked* mature but the abdomen was small. I kept
her for another week and a half before dispatching her. I believe
some chemicals cause queens to either not take mating flights or
cause them to be sterile. It's another case for not using
chemicals...
Waldemar
Long Island, NY
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