Spring loss

[Alfred]

For those who haven't read the back story ad nauseum-it wasn't me ,it was like it when I got here.
The hive was feather light when it had to be moved to my site the month before.
Possibly a late swarm
Poorly prepared in Autumn.Dead by early March last year.
Sorry I cannot get the images to work to save my life.
https://ibb.co/j4tK66x
https://ibb.co/kBS6Ww2
https://ibb.co/wLxy5F3
https://ibb.co/c37NMYq
There's plenty more

Queen clearly visible,zero stores left,partly drawn comb around the cluster frames,foundation outboard of these.
Backsides in the air.Although they had 1/2 kilo of my fondant by then it's safe to say they'd starved?
All mine were force fed, trickled ,insulated and pollen subbed this winter- lesson learned

But Ive just spotted multiple eggs in cells at the top right.
Queen given up?
So they were doomed anyway?

[Chrisbarlow]

They starved to death. Nothing to do with queen, lots of brood by the looks of it.

Not enough stores for winter.

Even adding fondant, I would have added 3-4kilo and put it direct over cluster.

[Alfred]

Multiple eggs stuck to the cell walls- is that not laying-workers?

[AdamD]

Bees with their heads in cells is a sign of starvation. It does look like they ran out of food sadly.

[Chrisbarlow]

Multiple eggs stuck to the cell walls- is that not laying-workers?

As Adam says, head in cells is a sign of starvation. Thats what killed em.

I couldn't see that in the photos the multiple eggs however, if that's what you saw then its suggests that, yes.

The brood pattern still looks uniform, the eggs I saw were single and at the bottom of the cells and the bees I saw were worker bees. This indicates a queen that is still functioning correctly.

Back to the laying workers, if that had been going on for long then then the brood pattern would be bumpy and pepper pot and there would be lots of drones in there. I cannot see any of that.

[Alfred]

https://ibb.co/h8F93jv
Diagonally down from top right corner

[Chrisbarlow]

https://ibb.co/h8F93jv
Diagonally down from top right corner

Thanks Alfred

Looking at those cells, there does appear to be something in there . To me it appears some have a couple of eggs in there, that could be an over zealous newish queen... May be

[Patrick]

I can see a couple of eggs in a couple of cells, but agree it isn't laying workers - they are generally multiple eggs in multiple cells, scattered around willy nilly. Significantly, there are apparently only eggs. There is no developing open brood food visible or young developing larvae, suggesting that the nurse bees were running on empty. The speckles of white you can see in the cells bases under magnification i would guess at varroa poo from previous mites in that cell, rather than feed jelly.

There are several perforated cappings which may indicate a residual varroa load with the pupae laid up to maybe three weeks ago.

But fundamentally, that many headfirst adults down cells bees says the final thing that did for them was simply running out of grub.

[Alfred]

Thanks chaps interesting stuff
One other thing , in that same last link,if you go to the cell on the foundation wire with two eggs,follow down and right to the next wired cell then up and right.
Is that dead larvae?
There's more vertically downwards
Nurse bees given up?
So if you saw that outside winter months there's cause for concern?

[Chrisbarlow]

I can't find what you mean, in winter it could just be chilled brood, in summer, it maybe an issue.

The problem I have is it could happen quite frequently in colonies in summer but if the bees remove the dead larvae then most Beekeepers, me included wouldn't notice it.