Dead larvae outside the hive after installation

Beekeeping - Basics
1

Need help!

Installed my nucs yesterday and after a couple of hours one of the hives started bringing dead larvae and young bees out of the hive.

Could it be because of them dying in transport? Are they robbed? Is the hive ok? The hive is not very active at the entrance either.

The other hive seems ok and today they were busy bringing pollen.

I will attach some photos to help understand the situation.

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Thanks a lot.

2

My understanding is that this is not unusual. Maybe those cells were damaged in transport or frame transfer, maybe they were stressed or somehow triggered the bees hygienic behavior and were dragged out.

3

Thanks Chau. I thought so too. What made it confusing was that the other hive had no dead young bees at all. Also, the one with dead young has much less activity going on compared to its sister hive.

4

Hi Roshi,

I also live in NSW, and might be able to help. As the weather in most of NSW is very cold right now due to an unexpected cold snap, the bees have probably suffered some stress in their install if you were anywhere near this cold/storm cell. Otherwise it might just be from the move. Fortunately bees are very smart and just go about their housekeeping without telling us anything. The brood can become chilled easily during times like this and some are likely to die. The bees normally remove them and put them outside. That doesn’t look like an abnormal amount to be honest so I am thinking they are ok.

Mine weren’t very active either until it warmed up a little bit today once the winds and rain stopped, and then they were happy and very active.

I hope this is helpful. I’d suggest to keep monitoring them, and also speak with the keeper you bought the nuc from.

Cheers,

Marcelle

5

Thanks a lot Marcelle. That makes sense as we had a few miserable days here too.

Also, once they settled I had no more dead ones at the entrance and they seem more at home and a bit more active.

The interesting thing is that the sister hive that I installed at the same time is way more active and started collecting pollen right away. Will monitor the situation.

Thanks for the help.

Roshi.

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