The bees in the photo came from Helen Nunn in May 2017. They had been un
treated for 2 years following intensive keeping. I assume that the intensive
keeper bought the usual sort of Queens.
The colony was awash with Varroa but I though that they were sufficiently
strong to survive. I've noticed that 'Italian' type bees become darker when
their honey stomachs are empty. The shiny darkness is due to hair loss. I need
to look in more detail but I don't think it's that.
I am also perplexed by the white residue in the cells further down the comb. I
think that they're chewed cappings which haven't been cleaned up. I've attached
a second photo which shows this better. It also shows bees which have not lost
their fur.
Will
On 04/03/18 21:04, Paul Honigmann (Redacted sender paul.honigmann for DMARC)
wrote:
What strikes me aboutthis picture is:
* Not many bees (could imply queen failure)
* Stores just a few cells away - NOT a few combs away - I doubt it is
isolation starvation
* Shiny black bees
* The honey cells are not white capped, they are dark (no air gap behind
wax capping) implying this strain of bees has few Amm traits / genes, implying
(this is a bit of a logic stretch - I'm concatenating assumptions into a chain)
the natural colouration of these bees would tend to be Italian / much yellower.
This last could mean Chronic Paralysis Virus. There's also Acute Paralysis
Virus of which, Wikipedia
says<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diseases_of_the_honey_bee#Acute_bee_paralysis_virus>
"Apparently, this virus plays a role in cases of sudden collapse of honey bee
colonies infested with the parasitic mite Varroa
destructor<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varroa_destructor>."
Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus, which is described in more detail in BeeBase:
http://www.nationalbeeunit.com/index.cfm?pageid=275&video=03
The reason this comes to mind is that someone in south Oxfordshire mentioned
recently, they lost 3 colonies to ABPV. So maybe it's in our area. But it's
Chronic BPV which the references say gives shiny black bees.
Did you save any corpses in a freezer? You can always ask a bee inspector, our
regional one is Jonathan Palmer,
Jonathan.Palmer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:Jonathan.Palmer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> . I
don't know if he's as accepting of our no-treatment approach as his predecessor
Phil Spillane.
If it is a virus, best not feed remaining honey to other hives. Might be wise
to burn the comb, too.
Anyone here got experience with CBPV or ABPV?
Paul
Attachment:
isolation_starvation_2.jpg
Description: isolation_starvation_2.jpg
