All
 
I'm changing the subject -- bees dying implies dead bees at/near  hive.  I 
saw clean bottom boards, no piles of dead bees anywhere.   Beeyards were 
uncHello Jerry & All,

Joe had lots of comments, questions:
 
<I wish to place colonies with associated absconding type symptoms in a  
separate category, and consider for a moment only colonies that tend to  have 
symptoms of small clusters with egg laying queen>
 
These are not different observations.  The small clusters with egg  laying 
queen appear to be the remnant populations following  absconding.  These were 
all colonies that in a matter of a few days went  from populous, with all ages 
of bees, to a remnant with very few bees -- all  young.
 
<In your opinion, do you think  it is suggestive of broodnest  worker 
depletion due to intense forager recruitment  (reassignment in  division of labor)? > 
  <Instead, the lack of old bees  suggests an intense outward forager 
recruitment behavior.>  These  colonies are struggling to meet all of the 
requirements -- there are  foragers, and they also are very young.

<signs of  fresh nectar near the brood, (indications of very recent  
foraging)? ,,,, 
and proximity and quantity of very recent pollen?  Were  ‘old pollen 
stores’ located within the broodnest area (apx distance of 3 or  so frames 
each way) near the small cluster tending to be depleted?>  
 
We saw everything from copious stores of pollen, nectar, honey -  to 
shortfalls.  But none of the variations on this theme explain the  losses -- we had 
yards with lots of old stores, yards with abundant new stores,  and yards barely 
making resource needs -- all displayed the same  syndrome. 

*<Brood chewed out, emerging adults stuck in cells,  some with tongues out.> 

The chewed out brood appeared healthy - not  rotting, discolored.  Bees heads 
out, etc.
All seem to be more an artifact of insufficient bees to tend, feed - than  of 
a disease per se.
 
Also, there often had been a brood break, but recoverying colonies had all  
stages of brood.
 

<I know that you stated these bees were “working hard to  re-establish the 
colonies”.  Please define more clearly,  does  this statement mean there 
was a ‘recovery’, in progress?  In other  words, were they on the upswing?>
 
 
<Do you mean,  working hard to reestablish the colony that is best  
described as in decline, or on a down swing?>
 
We saw both -- 'survivor colonies' that appeared to be still going  downhill, 
'survivor colonies that perished in the last week AND 'survivor  colonies' 
that were slowly coming back -- brood, foraging, etc.

My  opinion, this has NOT played out yet.  Whole yards were wiped out, other  
yards are still in the downward spiral, and some colonies are coming back.
 
Obviously, the ones on the downward path, and any new locations are of  
interest - 'catch it in the act' so to speak.  Otherwise, as Bob Harrison  
commented, we were mainly conducting autopsies.  Need to move to  diagnosis.
 
Since Monday, I have reports of this having occurred in Ohio and  
Connecticut.  We really need to backtrack this to its origins, track its  distribution 
regionally, maybe nationally.  My concern, with the high  rental prices for 
almonds, east coast beekeepers have been moving bees to  California and back -- 
fundamentally changing migration routes.  One of my  team will be in California 
this week to check out report bee losses - don't know  if its the same 
syndrome or something else.
 
We also need to get to Texas, where we have further reports of bee  losses.
 
The list can help us locate beekeepers with this problem (over the past  
year).  Some of the losses occurred as far back as August, maybe even  earlier in 
northern states.
 
Jerry

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