[riverrat]

I did a cutout friday night. It was a newly established hive that hadnt been there more than a month. The comb in this hive wasnt smooth and flat on the face like most it was rough jagged and some of the capping was bulged out and pierced on the brood. The cells was not drone. I have read about foul brood and the piercing being one of the signs but the hive had no other signs. It was a small hive with not a large quantity of bees but it did have a laying queen. I was able to spot eggs and larva at different stages of developement. There was no dead bees that I could find. Any ideas on what may be the case. Im thinking the hive may have been sprayed but didnt see the usual signs that you see in sprayed hives. The bees was traveling about 15 feet from the entrance of the hive to where they was building comb. The only way they could ahve been sprayed was at the opening of the hive. Im thinking they was probably sprayed a while back and they was on the rebound. Any suggestion

 

[db_land]

Hi rat,
Did you open any of the brood cells to check on condition? Since it's a new hive with lots of bees, the queen could be relatively old and maybe laying some unfertilized eggs in worker cells.

 

[riverrat]

Hi rat,
Did you open any of the brood cells to check on condition? Since it's a new hive with lots of bees, the queen could be relatively old and maybe laying some unfertilized eggs in worker cells.

The bees in the bulged cell was worker bees and for the most part developed. When I mentioned bulged they was not the bullet shapped domed drone cells. Didnt see any Drone cells in the hive. or drones for that matter. I will try to take some pics of the comb and post them to make it easier to try and find out what was going on. Thanks