Something strange is going on in my hive.  There is a rapidly-growing pile
of discarded pupae that has suddenly appeared outside the entrance.  While
some of these are drones (and I can understand killing/eliminating drones),
the bulk seem to be workers.  The only thing that I can see that is at all
unusual is that the worker pupae seem to be undersized.  Some are developed
enough that they are starting to color up and occasionally move, but most
are fairly "young" pupae.
 
What's going on?  I don't recall anything like this being mentioned when I
took my bee biology class.  Has some odd scent keyed them to purge the hive
of anything abnormal?
 
  Jane Beckman  [[log in to unmask]]