Hi everyone,

My colonies are developing some strange symtoms which I cannot explain.
First of all, the number of bees in my four hives has been decreasing
largely, and the bees have been spending a lot of time removing dead bees
from within the hive - this seems strange as I believe bees usually die
outside the hive - another strange thing is that the dead bees which the
workers are removing are not totally dead when removed; they still wiggle
around for an hour of so after being removed.  I collected about 40 of these
3/4ths dead bees, and killed them in a insect killing jar powered with ethyl
acetate (I have these jars for my butterfly and moth collecting).  As they
died, I rolled them, looking for varroa.  Only three were dislodged.  I then
tried disecting them for tracheal mites (which I didn't think really was the
cause - these are second generation buckfast) but was unsuccessful, not
suprisingly.  Today I decided to open one of the hives and do the ether roll
technique to see if my varroa population was high; I also was going to uncap
and remove some drone brood.  Well, there were few bees, and not much brood
in a very bad pattern.  There was evidence of dead pupae, or maybe larvae,
which looked like little white puddles in the bottom of the cells.  In some
places, these puddles had dried up, turning kind of grayish.  First through
my mind was AFB, but a few things don't make sense - why would the worker
bees be carrying out so many mostly dead workers if AFB was the problem?
Isn't it just an immature bee disease?  By the way, I rolled about 40 bees
with the ether (it was difficult to get larger samples, because the bees were
spread out on the combs) and only four mites stuck to the jar sides.

If anyone out there can give me some hints, I would be very grateful.  By the
way, I live in Houston, TX - continuous cold weather won't be until Dec.

Thanks!
Dar