Background - second year beekeeper, Withcott, SE QLD, 3 hives (plus an end-stage nuc of laying workers that I am using to improve my observational skills). First varroa positive wash - 3/2/26 - one hive - 3 mites. Brood from all hives treated with Varroa Controller 6/2/26. Follow up washes - 25/2/26 - one hive (different one) - 2 mites. Brood from all hives treated with Varroa Controller 28/2/26. Hives usually protected from ants by moats, but one went dry recently while we were away so some small ants have got in and seem to have established. It looks from Do ant colonies persist in the hive if you stop access from the ground? that I need to do a big clean up.
Two recent - possibly related, possibly unrelated - issues.
One - Since 9/3/26 (after good soaking rain on 8/3/26) I have noticed an unusual number of sick and dead bees deposited on the mesh covers of my ant moats. I initially thought they we just dumping them rather than flying with them because of the wet weather, but there are more this morning - first photo. I saw one taken out alive and dumped. I looks to me like a young but not properly formed bee - second photo and video. The other dumped bees look similarly “not right”. Maybe something to do with varroa, the heat treatment, cleaning up after rain, having the moats broached by small ants?
Two - Follow up sticky mats from 8/3/26 contained some weird stuff that I had not seen before. I thought it looked a bit like this - Saw Dust in the Tray or this - Debris in Flow Hive 2 bottom tray - egg husks of some kind? - #8 by BeeCreative but I wasn’t sure - first two photos below. Yesterday I gathered a lot of this stuff from the floor of the nuc - third and fourth photos below. I found some small larvae as well as the debris - they seem to be able to “jump” - video below. In terms of other insects seen - 2 SHBs, 1 odd looking fly, some small ants.
I have no idea if these two things are connected but in case they are, I thought it best to share as one post. Hoping for some insights. Happy to provide more info if that might be useful. Thanks in advance.
Plant parts (brownish anthers) from pollen gathering, and a couple of tiny SHB larvae in the last photo (the tiny translucent worms with spines at one end). Also a little wax moth frass (poo - the stubby black cylinders). Very nice photos, by the way. Crystal sharp!
Hi Tamsin, looks similar to my dying bees- see post What's wrong with these bees? Dawn_SD suggested possible insecticide use in the area. I am in far north coast NSW.
Tom.
Thanks @Dawn_SD . Do you think they could be small ant larvae rather than SHB? As I mentioned I definitely have an ant problem in my hives (due to temporary moat failure) and see very few SHBs (at the moment anyway). I went into one of the hives this morning and found this on the top of a super frame after removing the hive mat - I don’t really know what it is but there were a few small ants around and I thought it might be where they are trying to nest amidst re-modelled propolis. There’s one larva in one photo along with what might be eggs and/or some frass - a bit closer up in the second photo. I’d expected to find SHB larvae in cells rather than this sort of location?
Thanks @thomasalbert . I did wonder about that but I think these are young bees that have only just emerged/been dragged out of their cells because of abnormalities. They are still “furry” but agree the tongue out - as below - seems to be commonly associated with poisoning - but that seems weird as they’ve not left the hive. I did go into one of the hives this morning. I found this nearly emerged dead bee with tongue out on a nearly empty frame (second photo) - a bit of an unusual frame set up as I had it lying horizontal in a spacer above the brood box just waiting for the last brood to hatch after replacing the frame with a new one in the brood box itself. Maybe the larvae here weren’t cared for properly - although I have not seen issues like this when I have done this before (but that was before varroa and use of the varroa controller). Due to an unforeseen incident I didn’t manage a full brood inspection - but I did seem some healthy uncapped brood of various stages on a couple of frames in the brood box.
