Kerry and others:
 
We observed a strange response in a nucleus colony of honey bee maintained
in an indoor flight chamber.  For two month the bees flew to feeders and
went about their business with little die off of bees.  The queen was not
laying  - we were not providing pollen substitute and were in the process
of increasing the day length in an attempt to convince the bees that it
was spring, not autumn.
 
A few days ago, within 24 hours, all of the bees marched out of the hive
into the flight  tube and then died.  In addition, there was a lot of
debris with them in the flihgt tube.
 
Another hive in the same room showed no visible problems.
 
Something drove the bees out and they then died.
 
The only thing we could detect was that these bees had a heavy Varroa
infestation.
 
Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.
 
P.S.  While composing this reply I got a message from someone on the list
about bad grammer.  On my system, when a message comes in while composing
a response, the message overwrites everything and makes it very difficult
to see what is going on.  One has choices - either continue with the
response or cancel and start over.  I continued on, so please forgive any
mistakes that may have crept into my typing.
 
Jerry Bromenshenk
The University of Montana
Missoula, MT  59812-1002
406-243-5648
Fax:    4184