On 11 Feb 98 at 9:06, aarcher wrote:
 
> When I opened the hive in beautiful weather yesterday I observed the
> following:
> Almost one full brood box (the upper box) full of honey and pollen
<snip>
> Bodies of a couple of hundred bees on bottom board (not thousands
> as I might have expected from this booming hive if a sudden
> catastrophe had occurred).  Queen not visible or included in body
> count.
> Swarm or supercedure cells along the bottoms of many of the frames
> (I would guess they were pretty much at the same stage of
> development.)
> Several combs in the lower box were damaged. (combs appeared to
> have been "chewed on" almost down to the foundation in places .
 
 
Well, so far we've had T-mites and Varroa mites. I cannot subscribe
to either of those and would like to add queen failure to the
suggestions.
        The symtoms are classic, Queen cells along the bottom of the frames
chewed foundation where the bees were trying to get wax for cells. I
bet a dollar to a doughnut the cells were black or dark, usually a
sign of an under fed hive trying to produce wax while no flow was on.
        This would explain the lack of bees. Hopelessly queenless bees will
abscond leaving only the young this explains the half emerged bees,
not enough warmth from a diminished cluster.
 
> There were many of the above mentioned white grains in the 'empty'
> cells in the brood area.  I noticed a clear liquid mixed in with
<snip>
> Also the bees that were alive in survivor hive (#2), had lost a
> great deal of their Italian color (not much yellow left).
 
Quite possibly Nosema. I have noticed in the past a black greasey
look about bees suffering from that, but a sample is the best way to
go!!
> By the way,  the bee hive that is no more, was installed in my
> standard Lang hive;  the survivor was installed in a home built TBH.
>  Still find the TBH preferable to work with (I have a bit of a bad
> back too).
 
No Comment, apart from saying, if the queens time is 'up' it doesn't
really matter what hive she's in. A new queen every two years MAXIMUM
would prevent this!!!!
 
 
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