Saturday, May 30, 2015

#1 is in trouble

I put in sticky boards today, and as part of the procedure, cleaned out the trays (below the screen bottoms).  In #1's tray I saw a bunch of dark objects that I have not previously seen.  I collected some and examined them.  They are at most about 1 cm. long.  Too bad I do not have a better camera.



I looked online at several sites and photos and figure these are either wax moth or small hive beetle larvae.
The upper is wax moth and the lower is small hive beetle
I decided I better take a look into the hive.  I had not inspected this hive since moving the nuc into it April 24th.
What I found:  not many bees in top box.  Bottom box had fair number of bees, but I saw no queen activity, i.e., no larvae eggs or capped brood and no queen.  Also, no hive beetles.  I reduced the hive to one deep box. 
As you may recall, on April 24 I had seen the queen and capped brood in the nuc that I put into #1 that day.  So, what happened?  The queen seems to be gone- did she get injured or lost while being transferred?  Of course, we will never know.
So #1 is not back after all.  I thought of taking the queen from one of my nucs but I do not think I will.  I'll wait until one of the nucs has a laying queen, re-check #1 and if need be, carefully transfer queen and brood into #1.

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