hello Richard & All,

>> Funny you guys should be talking about this I am now in the middle of
>> what
>> could be a huge die off.

I assume you keep bees for a living?

Your location?

Problems this year have happened fast in certain drought locations.  I have
also heard of problems like you describe in areas of Minnesota.
Darrel Rufers operation.

>We took off a poor crop in August

Queens shut down when nectar & pollen slows or stops. Italian lines can keep
on cranking out bees.

>and slapped on
>> the new mite strips.

probably not the sole source of your problems.

 I
>> go back in Sept. to check on things, the hives are light but not
>> starving,

I always feed after pulling supers if pulling all supers. I also feed pollen
patties in the holding yard as little pollen coming in. Timing this year is
important From Kansas City south to the coast.

Now the scary part is that I
>> start looking into some hives and I'm not seeing any new brood and no
>> eggs.

I have heard this quite a bit this year in areas south of me. Nothing
coming in so the queens shut down.
When queens stop laying the queen shrinks and hard to tell from workers.

Finding a queen in shake bees is almost impossible when no eggs or larva are
present. If you are only seeing a small amount of sealed brood and no eggs 
or
larva then your queens could still be in the hive but hard to find.  Running
all the bees through an excluder or feeding syrup & pollen (if none coming
in) and checking in a week might work.

>> I think maybe the acid killed my queens so I dig in and I'm finding small
>> queens running around aimlessly looking like they haven't been fed for a
>> month.

Again without your location hard to say. the acid *might* have killed some
queens or you are simply looking at queens which have not laid an egg in a
long time. They do move *aimlessly around the hive* when not an egg laying
machine.


A new beekeeper down the road who hadn't treated calls me for some
>> queens. Not seeing eggs she thinks she is queenless. Same thing small
>> shut
>> down queens, so it wasn't the acid but the season.

I think the season is the correct answer. Depending on your location I can
advise better?

 I fed and slapped on some
>> pollen sub. We've had a warm fall with a late frost but I don't think
>> those
>> queens will do it.

Good move but if too late you might consider a move south . Every couple
hundred miles will gain you a few weeks of queen laying but its hard at
times to fool the bees as the days are getting shorter.

The last resort if too pump a gallon of feed other other day until you get
the amount of stores needed to winter in your area and combine if needed. No
need for newspaper this time of year just combine.
Hope for the best next spring.

>Anybody else finding the same thing?

My bees look great and the queens still laying but feed bill is expensive. I
did eliminate all hives weeks ago which were *dinks*. Only strong hives with
several cycles of winter bees.

I do not like feeding bees which will soon be gone when I can make up splits
in spring and feed the less expensive fructose instead of the higher priced
sucrose for my area.

Strange as it may seem I may go north a few hundred miles in spring to areas
out of the drought  next spring if we do not get the spring rains. Iowa has
had plenty of rain.

bob

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