rusty/mildew looking cells

1163 Views 1 Reply 2 Participants Last post by BjornBee, Jun 10, 2009

kugoggio

Discussion Starter · Jun 10, 2009

I posted last week about my bees congregating and dying outside the hive. The situation was that they would come out the entrance, fall to the ground, then hobble & flip to maybe 15 feet away from hive, always same direction, then die. I think this "congregation" was due to the way my hives are situated and they were following their "prewired" flight pattern...they always leave the hive, healthy, or sick, and go east.
the condition is MUCH improved, but not over yet. Did varroa inspections, many times, don't think so. I suspect some insecticide.
Lost over 1000 bees. TODAY, it was warm & sunny enough to go in for a look. Looks normal to me, ONE exception maybe : There are some cells, only noted on one frame though, that look rusty...maybe mildew-ish. Only about 10 of these on one frame though (that I noted...went through entire bottom box) . There are lots of new eggs, new capped brood. Before this problem happened I thought I had some capped honey on outer frames, that seems to be gone now, I put some sugar water on for them when the problem started (hardly touched) but that capped honey is gone.
With all said, any comments about those rusty/mildew looking cells?

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BjornBee

· #2 · Jun 10, 2009

It could be a touch of chalkbrood. Chalk is weather and genetic related, but also is considered a "stress" disease, which oftentimes means you see it in periods of damp cooler weather, or when the hive is thrown into turmoil (Divides, nuc building, etc.). Certainly housecleaning and the normal flow (duties) of this hive were effected by the die-off of the chemicals. Once chalk starts, the effects sometimes lingers for weeks as it takes this long for symptoms to be seen.

As the numbers rebound, they will slowly correct things like chalk, clean out tainted pollen, etc.

Give it some more time.

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