We sent some bee samples to the Beltsville Lab for examination.  As we had
so many losses, thought there must be something we missed.
 
Throughout the year from late winter through to now, we have examined,
checked, treated (sorry) and kept grease patties in and used Apistan both
spring and fall.  Never any evidence of disease or diseased type behavior.
We don't examine too often, maybe every two weeks or so, when things are
going well.  I walk by the hives and stop and watch the activity each day.
 
You know we had the bee robbing episode; the yellow jacket stuff; weak
hives; weird queen behavior; and other weird things going on in the hives.
We started  into June with 12 hives.  We now have 3.    Went into the last
hive that was getting weak and took out about 10 dead bees from the bottom
board and about 10 live ones.  Sent them off.
 
Most of your advice seemed to lead us to believe that the problem may have
been tracheal mites or mite syndrome.  Results came back today.  No
evidence of any type of parasitic mites; no disease.
 
Was thinking it might be second year queen problems.  Noooo, 3 of the 12
hives were new packages in the spring; and not the 3 that survived.  Two of
the 3 that survived are Buckfast queens, new this year.  The other was a
swarm that we don't know what they are.  All the others were swarms or
Italians.  Back to Weird Queen Behavior.
 
Judy in Kentucky, USA
 84.5 West;  38.5 North
USDA edges of Zone 5 and Zone 6