On Jun 28,  2:32pm, Eric Abell wrote:
> Subject: How to deal with ....
> First a little background:
> I am located in Northern Alberta, Canada and we have had 2 weeks of cold
> rainy weather.  The hives in question were checked 19 days ago and were
> queen rite.  17 days ago they received the last of 3 treatments of Formic
> Acid on the bottom board.
>
> What I have found - in far too many hives:
>
> The upper brood chamber is almost full of honey.
> The population of bees was great.
>
> The bottom brood chamber has capped brood, no open brood or eggs and so no
> queen.  I have seen Formic acid kills before but this was always accompanied
> by lots of supersedurre cells.  No queen cells in any of these colonies.
>
> This occured in colonies that may have been exposed to Varroa and which were
> treated with Apistan.
>
> An ideas on what is happening or suggestions on how to deal with these
colonies?
>
> My management at this time is:
> Introduce a queen into the bottom brood chamber, place an empty brood
> chamber as the second box, excluder, the brood chamber full of honey in #3
> position and an empty super on top.
>
> I have seen similar occurances on the past but only rarely and never thought
> too much about it.  This time I am finding 2 or 3 in many yards.
 
We had a very cold, wet, spring in Western Washington, solid rain from March
through the first part of June.
 
I had a similar problem in five of my hives.  Lots of honey, pollen, a strong
population, but no brood whatsoever.  I even found queens in two of the hives.
 
I requeened last week and haven't opened them yet to see if there are eggs.
 
About 10 people in my bee association reported similar situations.  Varroa does
not appear to be the cause.
 
Does anyone out there have any good ideas about what could cause this?
 
Kris Bruland
Member of Mt. Baker Beekeepers Association
Bellingham, WA  U.S.A.