Hi, I'm a hobbiest with two hives. Here in Massachusetts the flow is over and I've been feeding a 2:1 syrup to both hives for about a month. One hive has been taking the syrup quickly, has a large population, and has good reserves for the winter (I use two full size hive bodies and they have one full and capped). The other hive is my problem. A few weeks back I went through it and found a few swarm cells (at the bottom of the frames). This seemed odd to me as I found the queen (she's marked and new this spring), so I destroyed the queen cells. I think the bees may have known something that I didn't as the population now is much reduced (bees could cover about three frames, both sides). More info about this hive: I put on Apistan three weeks back when I removed the surplus. There are now some dead Varroa on the bottom board, but not excessive amounts. There is hardly any brood. A hand full of larvae and capped cells. The bees congregate on ~3 frames. On the other frames where brood was produced in the past, there are scattered capped cells, some with perforations, some with a head of a bee just emerging (but dead). When I open a capped cell in this area, I find a nearly completely formed dead bee. These don't seem to have the 'ropy' aspect I've read AFB has. After seeing this, I mixed up some Terramycin/Sugar and dusted the top of the frames of both hives. I did this more as a prevention measure than thinking that it would cure this hive. My best guess now (and I do mean guess) is that the queen has failed for some reason and decided not to lay eggs. She's there, and as she's marked, I know she is the one I introduced this Spring. If this is the case, I'm afraid it's too late in the season to introduce another queen... any other ideas? Thanks, Mike Killoran --------------- [log in to unmask] Embrace Entropy (617) 981-2667 (Lexington, MA USA) ---------------