"I am assuming that you have other colonies headed by queens from a different source in these same yards and that these are not behaving in this way and have brood in all stages?"

Yes I have colonies headed by Italians, Minnesota Hygienics, VSH line, Russians and a some other assorted lines and they are all in normal brood development.  There are 10 out of 160 of this Italian line that are exhibiting this behavior. Mr.Oldroyd would be welcome to them  Mite loads as sampled via screen bottom board are low but this is to be expected as along with the 500 colonies I lost last winter, the upside is that I also lost my most virulent mites.

The idea of placing the eggs in another colony is a good one but at this point, we are busily collecting honey supers, fighting off bears (lost 25 beautiful nucs yesterday due to not getting to the yard and changing the battery in a timely manner) and I will be out of town for the weekend.  The patches with eggs are down to about one frame and the pollen is crowding the space available and my thinking was to let them dink out.  No intention of trying to requeen unless the population warrants a cage introduction and a timely pinch.


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