My brain went into overdrive trying to understand a complex problem of why there was no brood or eggs (see previous post). With only my novice understanding I had to phone a couple of beekeeper friends and posted the situation on a forum.
Possibilities (most likely to least likely):
- After I harvested the honey the bees were left with no/little stores and the Queen stopped laying as there was not food for the eggs (other beekeepers have reported similar events)
- The Apiguard stopped the Queen laying
- The Apiguard made the bees destroy their own brood
- The Queen was killed during the last inspection 3.5 weeks ago
- When I combined the hives, there was a Virgin Queen in the weak colony (hence, no brood) and she killed my laying Queen in the strong brood box, leaving me with the Virgin Queen
I would have fed the bees earlier, but I needed to use the Apiguard. It was a case of what was going to kill them first: Varroa or starvation … or me?
Plan:
- Keep feeding the bees as much as they need
- Inspect in a weeks time to check for eggs and if there aren’t any buy a Queen
- Start a Varroa count in a weeks time
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Postscript: if you want to know what happened next, please read Breaking News – No Eggs.
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You can feed whilst treating with Apiguard if you need to; it can distract the bees from the Apiguard but that’s preferable to them starving. Hope you get some good news soon.
I agree. Perhaps I should have fed them for a couple of days during the treatment. I have been feeding them for 9 days now. So far fed them 12Kg of sugar!! Will check again Saturday to see if they need more and most importantly if there are any eggs!