TRANSITION TIME

At this time the main honey flow is done.  The small flow from goldenrod is now also slowing.  The bees are now transitioning from nectar gathering to winter preparation.  The hive begins by raising "winter" bees that have a slightly different metabolism and a higher fat content. This helps the "winter" bees survive the long winter.  Fall is also the time that the hive's workers evict the drones.

 Beekeeper Gerard sent in the following photo he took today.  In the front several hives he noticed a pile of dead brood.  Concerned he investigated.  Everything inside the hive appeared normal except he noted workers were uncapping drone brood cells and then removing the partially developed brood.  He assumes this is just part of the transition process and he was lucky to see it in process.

                                         Here is the pile of drone brood in front of the hive.

I enlarged the photo to see if I could detect any varroa attached to the brood.  I could not see any.  Gerard indicated he applied the miticide "MAQS" on August 6th.  Today is September 3rd; 28 days later.  Drones take 24 days to emerge after the egg is laid.  That means the eggs for these drone brood were laid after the application of the MAQS treatment.  It also seems that the MAQS treatment was effective since I could detect no varroa in this photo.  As you know varroa preferentially target drone brood to raise their young.