I had a most interesting find the other day. I found a sizable number of what look like peppercorn tree nuts in my queen excluder. The hive was very healthy looking with no obvious reason for the presence of the nuts. The queen excluder was approx 1/4 blocked at the rear. I can’t see that any other type of critter has any access. Its a flow hive setup with a restricted entrance approx 6cms wide. Anyone ever heard of such a thing before?
Hi Mark, welcome to the forum.
Without your description, with my eyes half closed, it looks to me like drone heads. If it is drone heads, that would mean that your queen got up through the QE and laid eggs in the Flow frames.
I saw a similar situation in a client’s Flow hive. The queen got up through the QE, laid a heap of eggs in the F frames, before finding her way back down to the brood box to continue laying down there, with no obvious brood break that I could see.
I think that client’s hive is mine now. Nearly 4 yrs ago the owner asked me to take the hive away so that he could get some work done adjacent to where the hive sits. He hasn’t asked me to bring it back yet.
That’s what I thought, drone heads
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Thanks for the replies guys. They are definitely nuts. Not to worry one of lifes mysteries I suppose
Hi Mark, I’d like to solve the mystery with help from a friend at the Sunshine Coast University. If you can send some to me at 3 Melanie Crt Buderim 4556, I’ll be happy to pass them on in order to get a proper analysis for you.
Cheers
I appreciate the offer but it’s not really necessary. I just thought someone might have seen some similar behaviour.
It would be necessary to satisfy MY curiosity, I’d pay for the postage. The only nuts that I could think of would be drone heads that look like nuts.
You could have brood in the flow frames which will need to be dealt with sooner, rather than later.