An Inspector Calls Again

Warmer weather at last, bees are flying and in the pond frogs are doing unspeakable things to each other. Yesterday, marking what may at last be the start of the beekeeping season I gave both hives a contact feeder full of 1:1 syrup.

Dinner is served

I actually had 2 litres of 2:1 (2kg sugar:1 litre water) syrup that'd been left over from last year. Rather than binning it I'd put it in a bottle and left it in the freezer for a few months. After defrosting it in the fridge I added 1.5 litres of hot water , it won't be exactly 1:1 syrup but I think it will be pretty close. I stirred it a long time and then with a few ml of Vitafeed Gold poured it into the feeders and placed them over the feeding holes. I could see there was still some fondant on the top bars but I left it there for the time being, I didn't open the hives at the time as I wanted to minimise disruption to the bee plus I was planning to do that today because..

Today was my second of three visits from the Regional Bee Inspector as part of the European Union Pilot Surveillance Programme for honey bee health. The previous inspector had changed roles and I gather is still working with bees but in a microscopy type role now and his position hasn't been filled yet (job vacancy there for someone who knows their bees and bee diseases) so today's Inspector, a chap with 45 years beekeeping experience, had been drafted in from another region.

The visit started off with a discussion of changes in my apiary, colonies added, sold, lost, merged and split. The only change to mine was the loss of one colony in the nucleus. There was a few questions about what I've been doing with my bees since last inspection too such as any treatments, I'd given them one treatment with Oxalic Acid back in January which was duly noted. He mentioned about heavy bee losses all over the UK particularly Scotland this year and how the past few years weather has been very different from that of previous decades. This time last year my hives has been teeming and I was removing drone brood to control varroa. The strange weather this year has meant the colonies are about 5 weeks behind their normal spring buildup. Next we went outside to meet the bees.


During the previous visit in September samples were taken from all three hives, in this visit samples were only being taken from hives showing signs of disease. I felt Hive1 may be a little touch and go as numbers were far lower than Hive2 so the inspector suggest we start with Hive2 to avoid transferring across any disease that might've been present in Hive1. With the crownboard off the inspector quickly located the Queen and some existing capped honey remaining. I like tot think the presence of capped honey meant I got things right preparing the hives for winter, it also explains why they hadn't paid much attention to the fondant and told me that the fondant on top of the frames wasn't necessary. We scraped of the existing fondant, I noticed a few bees had actually been trapped in the fondant when I'd placed the crownboard over it so I'll have to take a little more care next time -maybe smoke the bees down into the box more than I did. There were some eggs visible so she'd only started laying within the past 3 days. One frame had a small number capped brood on it, they weren't particularly well grouped. So she'd started laying on a previous warm day but stopped again. He felt this might indicate she wasn't mated well and may need replacing. I'll have to watch how she does as laying progresses.

Hive1 was less populous than 2, as I'd expected. There were a few eggs but the pattern better than in 2, the Inspector felt that despite there being less bees in Hive1 she may actually turn out to be the better queen. In this hive he spotted a few larvae who weren't quite correctly adhering to the vertical cell wall and had slumped a little. Segmenting of the body was still visible but did look a little relaxed. Out came a matchstick. The test for Foul Brood is to dip a matchstick into the dead larvae and pull it out, if it has Foul Brood the contents will stick to the stick and the cell contents forming a rope of slime. That didn't happen with these so no foul brood. I wonder if perhaps they're in early stages of a little sac brood, going to be a case of watchful waiting there really. I removed the fondant from this hive too.

He'd also spotted pollen being brought into both hives and no obvious signs of bee diseases in either. Given the high mortality rate in Hive1 I'd saved a jar of the dead bees in the freezer which he took. Looking at the jar he said he could see a black, hairless, shiny bee in the jar -that'd point the finger at Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus (CBPV), although there'd been no visible signs of it amongst the living bees. CBPV affects honey bees all over the world and is endemic in the UK. Normally present to some degree in most colonies it only seems to become a significant problem when the bees are crowded and unable to forage such as has been the case with the long winter. There is no treatment for CBPV but as they're no longer crowded, now foraging and I've pulled out the dead perhaps the colony will work through it if it hasn't already.

He had a quick look a the dead nucleus, I'd already pulled out most of the dead though there were a couple with their heads still in the cells. He concurred with my thought that the white mould visible on the comb had grown after the bees died too. There was still capped honey on the frames which the bees hadn't eaten having refused to break their cluster to get it. Whilst it certainly looks like they'ed starved he took the sample of dead bees from here that I'd frozen for testing in case there was anything more sinister at work.

Frozen bees

I'll check BeeBase at a later date to see if examination of the dead bees yielded anything unusual, but so far it seems there's nothing too major to worry about. No obvious signs of diseases, eggs being laid in both hives, pollen being brought in and capped honey still present in both hives, no varroa mites spotted. He felt Hive1 would build up rather well assuming the weather doesn't do something unexpected. Just need to keep an eye on the brood pattern in Hive2 and consider replacing her if she doesn't get her act together.