This seems similar to what happened to some of my hives in the early years
of Varroa. It seemed to affect the colonies that had earlier produced the
most honey and had seemed prosperous at the previous inspection only a few weeks
earlier. An extreme example was just 12 (I counted them) workers and the
queen being left. The problem hasn't re-occured since I have been practicing
anti varroa methods (except in one instance last year when I neglected to do
so).
I would suggest that with the diligent application of IPM the problem may go
away.
Chris
In a message dated 23/12/2006 04:42:44 GMT Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
First impressions -- affected colonies have NO old bees, nor are there any
dead bees in the hive or in front of the hive -- often not even the normal
die
off. In most cases, the queen is still present, and a cup or two of young
bees
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