Fig 9.
This was a comb from a swarm that I understand had not been opened since it was hived in a BKA apiary several weeks previously (4-5 from memory). The queen had obviously "disappeared" and there were emergency cells. So often I hear similar stories of queens disappearing after the swarm is hived, which seems odd as you would think the queen is good if she has built up a colony large enough to swarm.

These are a selection of photographs from colonies I have seen or managed. I know all these symptoms will occur naturally, and there is always someone who will tell you why it is happening. What they won't tell you is why it happens so often! There are many beekeepers who will not see anything wrong and for a variety of reasons. It may be they don't look at their bees as often as they should, or they don't recognise a problem, or perhaps they have sought advice and been told there is nothing wrong. I hope the photographs and descriptions will help beekeepers, especially beginners.

I would welcome photographs, especially with a description of what has happened.

Have YOU seen any of these problems?

If so please contribute to the forum or contact me. I have set up a facility for problems to be recorded. On the BBKA home page under "Site Navigation" click "Support Boards" then "Beekeepers Forum" then look for "Report Queen Problems". Just explain your experiences as best as you can.

Possible related problems

In 2006 the following have either been reported to me or I have seen myself. I list them in case there is a link.

Absconding.

I have experienced this myself for the first time. A 4 frame nucleus was made up and given a Q/C which emerged and the queen started to lay well. The colony built up to around 8 frames then absconded. All that was left was a few of handfuls of bees, which were augmented by emerging brood. All eggs and young larvae that couldn't be covered died. The queen was clipped and the colony was in a lightly wooded area, so did not get very hot. A varroa check was made and surrounding colonies had a natural mite drop of 1 or less per day in July.

I have subsequently spoken to other people about this and it appears that several have recently had the same problem. One person told me he had taken some very large swarms and he had got the impression they contained the whole colony, obviously minus the non-flying bees.

In recent years we have heard a lot about the "Mary Celeste" syndrome, and I am wondering if we are seeing the same thing, but at a different time of year.

Swarming.

I have had several reports of colonies swarming either with unsealed queen cells or no queen cells at all. I have only previously had this on one occasion, the day after I had moved a colony, and that was 30 years ago.

I have also noticed a rise in the number of "swarms" or "casts", some of them very small, with virgin queens. I can't believe there is a rapid rise in the number of clipped queens which is the usual cause. I think the reason might be the original queen in the colony has "disappeared", emergency cells have been built, and one or more virgin queens have gone off with one or more "swarms".

When answering calls from non beekeepers who have a swarm one of the questions I normally ask is "how big is it". This year many of them have been small, some no bigger than the size if a cricket ball, often several in the same area.

What are the causes?

I must keep an open mind and am open to any reasonable suggestions. I think we can largely discount the weather, and it seems logical to me that there is a possibility that the problems are partly caused by varroa or it's treatment in some way. The problems on the current scale have only appeared since the arrival of varroa, and travelled up the country at roughly the same rate as it's spread.

There are several issues involved and they may not be related, which is why it is important to establish the reasons at an early stage.

The main issues I think we should concentrate on are:-

• Larvae or pupae dying in the cell.
• The emergence of deformed queens.
• Failing queens.
• In addition I think there is a need to investigate unexpected colony behaviour. From time to time bees will do strange things, but at the moment they appear to be on the increase.

Since the release of Issue 001 of this document there have been three other reasonable possibilities that I have been made aware of. All seem feasible so I mention them here, together with my own thoughts in italics. I have to stress that no work has been done to date, but these are all suggestions I think are worth further investigation.

There has appeared on the BBKA website Support Board "Beekeepers Forum" a posting, "Possible Impact of Pesticides on Queen Rearing/Mating". This was a contribution from a Berwickshire beekeeper called Graham White, who goes under the name of "Border Beeman". This concerns a generic product called IMIDACLOPRID. There is also a follow up posting "Imidacloprid - Letter to Advisory Committee on Pesticides". Since they appeared Graham has written another item, and details are also on the BBKA website. Click on "Articles" under site navigation on the home page, then on No 15 "Concern over Imidacloprid".

This is rather fragmented and not easy to follow, but all the links should be visited. This should be of interest to all who have a concern for the environment, and I am amazed that it does not appear to have been picked up before. Graham has obviously done a considerable amount of work in tracking this lot down. I have had some of his findings checked, and it seems that the references are from reliable sources, many from the manufacturers themselves. What is alarming is that it appears that this chemical is being used in the UK, when it is banned in France. As far as the connection with the queen problems is concerned it seems quite feasible that this compound could be contributing to queens appearing to be lost on their mating flights. R.P

I have had several people contact me about the so called "gender bending" chemicals. These apparently affect many species including humans. They are called Endocrine Disruptors and seem to affect the male reproductive parts by mimicking the female hormone oestrogen. They are present in many synthetic items used in daily life including plastics, pesticides and even shampoo.

The reports I have seen have mentioned reduced sperm levels, and reduced sex drive as well as alteration of male reproductive parts. Just typing "Endocrine Disruptors" into a search engine is frightening. From one website I visited I quote, "Scientists now fear that seals, dolphins, otters, birds such as peregrine falcons and even honey bees are heading towards a uni-sex existence that would lead to extinction". This should be investigated as it is possible that the laying of drone eggs in worker cells could be caused by this. I am slightly more cautious of this theory because I would have thought that it would have had an effect earlier than it has, due to the length of time they have been in existence. R.P.

As the result of mentioning the queen mating problem in a beekeeping column I write for my local paper the West Sussex Gazette, I had a telephone call from a gentleman who is an ex-beekeeper. He is concerned at the rapid decline in the insect population in his area, where he has lived all his life, and been keeping records for over 30 years. He has been doing some investigation into the effects of the emissions from mobile telephone masts. The theory seems to be that the emissions are affecting the fertility of a whole range of creatures, and he thought this might explain the problems beekeepers were having.

I am not qualified to make further comment on any of the above, but have done further reading and it seems possible that the problem is much more complex than I originally thought. All of the suggestions so far, except the endocrine disruptors are relatively new, so perhaps my thoughts on linking the problem with varroa due to the timing are also appropriate to the other suggestions.

Without investigating too deeply there does seem to be a hint that the more remote areas of the country are having less of a problem than the rest. This actually fits in with all the suggestions.

The addition of these three possibilities might make a solution much more difficult to achieve as they are all out of the hands of beekeepers.

I have had other suggestions including one concerning organo-phosphates that are apparently put into aviation fuel to make the engines run quieter and more efficiently.

I have of course had some people tell me there are no problems at all. I have also had others tell me what it is and what it isn't. A much more helpful piece of advice came from a scientist who told me to chuck everything into the pot however crazy it might sound.

What is being done?

I have been in contact with both NBU and BBKA. It seems to me that BBKA are the organisation that should drive any investigation, although we must accept that apart from paid staff all other work is done on a voluntary basis. They do of course have connections and these will be vital.

This document will be updated when there is new information, and there is a link to the forum where beekeepers can make a contribution.

Beekeeping magazines will be kept updated, but I don't know them all, so if you are an Editor then please e-mail me so I can put you on the list. Information can be sent to Editors, but there is no guarantee they will print it, and if they do sometimes it is changed.

Until we have scientifically proven information I am willing to speak or demonstrate at major gatherings of beekeepers as much as anything to highlight the problems. We need to inform as many beekeepers as possible, and I see this as meaning a convention/conference situation rather that a local group of a dozen people.

I am building a network of reasonably serious and responsible beekeepers throughout the country, preferably who raise queens, in order to gain information that can be put on a standard form. It is not my intention to make much more work than would already be spent, and I am sure that most beekeepers records would be adequate. The intention is for contributors to keep very basic records that can be referred to if necessary. It does not matter if they have had no problems, as this might help us understand more. I would like to make contact with anybody who is willing to take part, but it is important that they have e-mail access otherwise it makes much more work for me. This can be done with the help of another beekeeper.

We are in a very early stage and I hope there will be swift progress.

What has been done to 07/06?

I have given a presentation to the Bee Inspectors Conference at NBU. Many Inspectors said they had recently seen an increase in the symptoms I had described. They agreed to help beekeepers report any problems they might see, but it must be remembered that in general the Bee Inspectors only see a colony once. Their help is valuable in helping to gather information, but it is the beekeepers who know the progress of their colonies and it is unreasonable to rely heavily on the Bee Inspectors.

I have given talks and demonstrations. This has proved quite useful and on occasions I have been able to show people problems they didn't know they had. At one meeting I walked into the room and the person operating the computer and projector was showing a short loop he had made about making up an observation hive. I immediately saw on the frames drone brood scattered about the comb in worker cells. He had a problem and didn't know it.

I have had quite a lot of correspondence from beekeepers in various parts of the world.

I have had several articles published in the Bee Press. There have also been articles and responses by others, many in support and others sadly with a negative and unhelpful message. It is sensible for Editors to present all views of a subject, and any reasonable person would expect them to do that, but it can be very annoying and frustrating when you are trying to help someone, for them to refer you to the written word stating there is no problem, or trotting out the usual ill thought out reasons. In general I have to say that the bee press has been brilliant, many of the Editors realising there really is a problem and doing their best to inform their readers. We are lucky in that beekeeping is a very specialist subject with a small readership, and most Editors are very knowledgeable and up to date.

Version 002 has appeared on many websites throughout the world, and many others and newsletters have made reference to it.

I have visited beekeepers local to me, and have helped where I can. It is difficult to have anything other than sympathy with a relative beginner with 2 colonies, one where the queen has "disappeared" leaving no eggs or larvae, and the other where the one queen cell they left was dud.

Some recent experiences

I am heavily involved with my local BKA, the Wisborough Green Div. West Sussex BKA. Our membership has rocketed and we have a large number of newish beekeepers, most of whom have been keeping bees for 4 years or less. Many have experienced the symptoms I have described, and to their credit none have walked away from beekeeping, but it would be understandable if they did. Many of my experiences have been gained as a result of the involvement with these people.

We have a start up scheme where a beginner can make up a 4 comb nucleus and manage it for the summer. In 2005 we made up 6 of these packages and the only queen that is still heading a colony is laying a high percentage of drones in worker cells. In short they have all failed within 12 months. A close eye has been kept on all of them and this shouldn't happen. In 2006 we have made up 14 nuclei. In the first wave of 5 one had a fertile queen, and the other 4 were all given Q/C's that emerged and were successfully mated, this incidentally when the weather was wet and cold! One of those has since absconded (see above). In the second wave of 4 which was made up in very good weather, only one mated and was laying well, but after a couple of weeks "disappeared" and the colony made poor emergency cells, the rest all had virgin queens that "disappeared", making 100% failure rate! This is disheartening to say the least, especially as beginners are involved.

On June 29th 2006 I visited 3 of our local BKA members with problems in overall 4 colonies, one supersedure that had gone wrong, two where the queens had gone off lay, then disappeared, and one with a 2006 queen that was laying visually perfect brood, but with eggs in queen cells. In the latter case it was not a full colony and had 3 frames of foundation in the B/C. None of these things should normally happen, but they have, and I can't believe they are only happening in my locality. None of these queens were related, and you can't blame the weather or birds as some people are. On the following day I saw a queen that had emerged 5-6 weeks earlier laying total drone, after initially laying well for a couple of weeks. She was a large queen and to look at her you wouldn't think anything was wrong. This was a beginner with a hive that was new throughout.

What do I think needs to be done?

• Convince beekeepers there is a problem that is effectively a new disease, and that they will need to address it, otherwise they may lose their bees.
• Obtain up to date information by conducting a literary search.
• Identify suitable research facilities and possible funding.
• Offer advice on colony management until the causes are determined.
• Train RBI's and local experts on recognising the symptoms.
• Encourage beekeepers to look much more closely at their bees.
• It is going to be much more difficult for beekeepers with, lets say, less than four colonies to cope so I think there is a role for beekeepers to raise queens in a group situation. I see the possibility of local Associations raising queens and "banking" some in nuclei for when failures occur.
• Bring several organisations together in order to take advantage of their expertise.
• Provide a source of readily available information for beekeepers.

What should beekeepers be doing?

Management techniques will be developed, but until then can I suggest that beekeepers take the following steps:-

• Make sure that you can recognise healthy brood and know what a good pattern should be like. It is surprising how many fairly experienced beekeepers can't! In the booklet "Foul Brood Disease of Honey Bees: Recognition and Control" published by C.S.L. there are some very good photographs of healthy brood.
• As often as possible for 12-14 days after your queen is due to emerge check around the hive for a small cluster of bees. On several occasions I have seen a virgin queen in such a cluster, and not always at the front of the hive. This should alert you to the fact that her wings are deformed and she can't fly. See Figs 1 and 2.
• Once a queen is successfully mated and laying well it makes sense to keep her as long as possible. Any problems so far have shown soon after a queen has mated. There is little point in replacing a good queen with something else that may fail. There are strains of bees where the queens are known to be long lived and with low swarming tendencies. Perhaps we should concentrate our efforts on propagating these.
• We must assume there are parasitised drones in every area, and it would make sense to raise a large number of drones yourself. Below is a suggestion sent to me by a knowledgeable queen raiser with vast experience.

"Drone brood. One comb in every colony should give a good drone population. I suggest you place one drone comb in all your colonies. Those in the undesirable colonies should be removed when sealed, placed in the freezer to kill the drones and varroa, cleaned and reused. They should be replaced by a comb of drone brood, larvae or sealed, from a good colony. The cleaned combs could then be put in the good colonies and the process repeated. This would ensure that all drones in your apiary were from good colonies and would also give some degree of control of the varroa. Please note, bees will not accept combs of drone eggs. You may also have a problem with chalk brood in the drone combs, so perhaps better to put them in the middle of the brood nest to avoid chilling."

My view of this is that it would have to be managed quite well otherwise varroa might be bred in the good colonies, which of course will aggravate the situation. I would suggest that each frame was coded in some way such as the use of coloured drawing pins. If used sensibly this could be combined with the IPM technique of drone culling, and in fact would be an improvement as many more drones will be retained. I think a good way of producing good drone comb would be to get them drawn out above the Q/E, then extract the honey, before putting them in the brood box. Some spares would need to be available in order to rotate them. The only problem I see is what to do with the cleaning of them. There are some beekeepers who put them outside for the birds to clean up, but I would avoid this as there is a possibility of spreading foul brood. R.P.

• I see no problems in using queen cells that are built in a colony where the queen is laying a high proportion of drones in worker cells, but you must make sure that there are no drones in the cells. This goes against the normal theories, but if there is a problem with the semen from one of the drones the queen mated with, it doesn't mean this is the case with all of them.
• Put queen cells in cages so that they can be seen when they emerge, and the ones with deformed wings can be discarded.
• When raising queens aim for at least double the number you need.
• Try to keep basic records as you may have vital information that will help in any research. It could also help you sort out a problem.
• Alert others to the problems and ask your local Association to make members aware of them. Make sure your officials follow the suggestions set out under "Advice and suggestions for local Associations" below.
• Check the BBKA website regularly, and make sure you have the latest version of these notes.
• Take photos of any of the above problems and send them to me preferably by e-mail. If you are unable to do it yourself then please ask someone who can. Ideally I would like photographs of deformed queens, brood, and queen cells complete with the contents. Please also include the area of the country.
• If possible avoid buying colonies before the winter, otherwise they may be queenless or have a failed queen in the spring.
• I see artificial insemination playing a significant role. This could help produce a limited number of good laying queens. It could be useful in the research stages to help eliminate the possibility of such things as inbreeding.

Suggested Management Techniques.

The three non varroa related possibilities have made management techniques more difficult, but if I am correct in my assumption that varroa might be one of the causes it seems there are three things that need to be addressed.

• Reducing chemical residues
• Reducing varroa levels
• Reducing the population of parasitised drones.

I think that short term we ought to be developing ways of reducing the possible causes, rather than wait for those causes to disappear.

At the moment I am planning to join forces with my local Assn for queen rearing in 2006. I intend to hive swarms on fresh foundation, and treat them with thymol and oxalic acid as well as adopt as many IPM techniques as possible. These colonies will be used for supplying larvae, building queen cells, and mating queens. I am looking at having a minimum of 8 colonies for this purpose, all in the same apiary.

My main honey producing colonies will all be used for rearing drones using the method described above. I think that if the drone combs were frozen at the middle of July this would kill the varroa, which might have built up by then. I have been advised that varroa mites will die within 24 hours if frozen, but as the brood in the combs will retain some heat for a time, I think that 3 days should be satisfactory.

With this method I am aiming at raising queens that have not been subjected to chemicals, hopefully free of viruses, and will mate in an area that has been flooded with good healthy drones.

This can easily be achieved by anybody on their own, with other beekeepers, or an Association.

(This programme is behind schedule because I was unable to obtain strong swarms early enough. To date I have acquired 6 swarms, only one of them being of any strength, only one with a fertile queen, and all of them heavily infested with varroa. This perhaps shows the standard of beekeeping that is unfortunately too common)

We must all assume there is going to be a high failure rate and we should make allowances to cover it. I suggest that you decide how many honey producing colonies you want, lets say, in multiples of four. For every four run an extra two smaller ones in pairs. These will be called "floaters". Make 2 x 4 frame nuclei fairly early in the year, and put your 2 worst queens from your main colonies in them. In the colonies they were taken from introduce previously started queen cells. If they mate successfully leave them alone. If they fail, then introduce queens, possibly in a nucleus, from the "floaters" and unite the remainder with the other one in the pair until you have further queen cells, then split it again. That way you have the same number of productive colonies all the time and the back up ones for emergencies. The "floaters" can be kept down to a fairly small size by moving them in order to lose flying bees to the main colonies. Five frames of bees will winter well in most winters. This can be done with differing numbers of colonies, and those with only one or two can work together. There is also scope for an Association to do the same in their teaching apiary, so that members can make use of spare queens.

Advice and suggestions for local Associations.

• Advertise the existence of these notes in your newsletters, websites and meetings.
• Try to provoke discussion, as at the moment I believe it will affect a lot of beekeepers.
• Bring the problem to the attention of your members, and encourage them to be much more vigilant when inspecting the brood in their colonies.
• Print off copies of the latest version of these notes and distribute to members who haven't got internet access.
• Appoint an experienced member to learn about the problems and the suggested management techniques, so they can help the membership, and possibly contribute to investigations.
• Encourage members to overcome the problems, rather than ignore them or give up beekeeping.
• Have a regular queen rearing programme in your teaching apiary, and have a reasonable number of queens in small colonies to distribute to members. We are doing this at Wisborough Green.

The future.

• If the problems are related to several causes then solutions might be long term, but no doubt management techniques will be developed to overcome some of them.
• With the three extra possibilities we have introduced the possibility of having to deal with the agro-chemical and telecommunications industries. This may be a smooth path, but they are both very much more powerful than us beekeepers.
• At a guess I would expect initial losses to be high until beekeepers firstly accept the problems, and secondly learn how to deal with them.
• If my assessment is correct it is going to take some time to investigate the issues, and we may not be able to attract any organisation to do the research work needed, especially as I think there are several issues involved, and funding appears to be in decline.
• I have seen some very good queens reared recently so it is not all doom and gloom. We must be positive, as I am sure that with sensible measures the problems will be kept to a minimum.
• We must strongly resist any calls to panic and import queens, as I am sure other countries will have the same problems, and it is looking as if the importation of bees may have been a cause of the problem in the first place. Apart from that it has always been beyond me why some people think that imported bees are better than those we already have, but that is another issue.
• Don't think that if you don't raise your own queens you are free of the problem. Every time a queen gets mated there is the chance of failure.
• It is expected that these pages will be updated on a regular basis. In time they may be superseded by some from official sources.

Comments from others in personal communication.

Since I first highlighted the problems in getting queens successfully mated I have received a steady stream of correspondence from a variety of sources, and from all over the country.

At this stage without much research I am assuming that varroa and/or it's treatment is the main cause, so I list below some of the more interesting points that are relevant. Some might not be directly related to the problem, but are connected in some way. I have edited where necessary, and made comment in italics where I think it is appropriate. Please note that some are as a result of observation or memory and may not be as a result of recording.

"The website is fine for alerting people to a possible problem and perhaps more note will be taken of queen failures. You never know, perhaps some bright PhD student will pick up on it".

"...I had one QC with a dead larva. Some of the beekeepers within the drone catchment area use thymol as I do. Another local beekeeper with 50+ colonies has 18 out of 20 queens mated in 3 comb nucs. He regards this as normal having kept bees for about 60 years. He originally used formic acid when varroa was first found in 1997, but more recently thymol. 18 out of 20 is what I would have expected before the current problems". This is well worth investigating. R.P.

"What I have noticed over the last two years is that an (obviously) mated Q has laid well for a month or so, then disappeared!" How many times have I heard that? R.P.

"More recently some colonies have produced huge numbers of drones in the worker cells at the top of the brood box (I use national brood and a half) this in the area most in contact with the strips. At first I thought the Queens had become drone layers - but the deep brood (furthest from the strips) has always been laid up with worker." This is interesting. I keep my bees on single B/C's, and have found that drone brood in worker cells is evenly distributed on the frames. Although against instructions, a control would be to put both strips to one side of the brood box. This also tends to suggest that chemicals might change an egg from fertile to infertile or influence the queens choice in what she lays. I understand that pyrethroid residues are more concentrated in the areas nearest the strips. Observations from others would be helpful. R.P.

"Breeding for resistance. This is the ultimate answer. All it requires is that beekeepers should identify the less susceptible colonies by collecting 50 to 100 mites from each colony once a year (Aug/Sep) and examining for damage to the mites. When I first started looking I found between 3 and 20% of mites damaged. After 2 generations of selection by instrumental insemination I achieved an average of 50%. This was maintained in open matings last year which I have recently checked, varying from 44 to 54%". I have had several comments about varroa resistant bees, mainly referring to experiences in other countries. My own view is that although the example above was from a beekeeper with less than 20 colonies, the results are very encouraging, but it is probably medium/long term, and would rely on a high level of commitment by everybody. It would need dedicated work from a number of competent queen breeders to make any headway, and would need some form of national queen breeding programme. In principle this has a lot to commend it, but the annual turnover of beekeepers of 10% and the inability or unwillingness of a significant number to partake would make it unworkable without some form of legislation. It would require a ban on imports, otherwise there will be a constant stream diluting the work. R.P.

"You seem to be collecting data so I am sending a précis of my apiary records for this season. In brief after all 6 colonies successfully coming through the winter I had a situation by the end of July where all 6 were queenless. Two ended up with drone laying workers, two are now OK and the other two still in doubt."

"... when this year two strong swarms I caught and settled into brood and a half Nationals successfully suddenly became Queenless, I have been pondering why. Other beekeepers known to me have had similar problems with Queens this year."

"I was pointed to your article online by one of my beekeeping chums who knew I had had some queen problems. It did strike a chord and made me rethink the problems I'd had which I had blamed on the swallow population... mainly because more experienced beekeepers said it was likely. It didn't seem like that satisfactory an explanation to me so I'm glad I read your piece". There are many similar comments, mainly by beekeepers who were not convinced about birds and weather. R.P.

"If the problem is caused by varroa, then we are seeing natural selection taking place, with some of the well mated queens, and the successful drones, coming from more resistant colonies."

"Have you read any of Rinderer's papers published in the ABJ on Mating and the Bee Yard? Two factors play a role in the semen content and viability of drones.

1. Varroa mite abundance.
2. Effects of control chemicals on drone testes."

I have had several references to work of this type. This is very valuable and shows that we need a comprehensive literary search. Some of the papers quoted go back to 1983, and although may still be relevant there must be subsequent work somewhere. R.P.

"It was interesting to find that a University in Germany have been working with a University in Brazil on this self same problem." Same comment as above. R.P.

"The occurrence of one-sided winged queens should also be investigated in wild colonies (difficult!) and untreated hives (must be some ?) to be sure that this is not a simple genetic trait. The possibility of non-pyrethroid triggers should be borne in mind." This came from a technical person and shows there is much research to do. R.P.

"We have had drone layers at the teaching apiary and one of our teachers made sure we all saw it." This shows a good positive attitude, and hopefully this document will encourage teachers to get beekeepers to contribute to the debate. R.P.

"I raised about 24 queens this summer in North Devon using Apideas for mating and got 90% success in mating. However, I have noticed about 50% of these queens were quickly superseded either in the Apidea or a few weeks after introduction to a nucleus. I have been raising queens on and off for nearly twenty years and the supersedure problems have been the highest ever this year."

"Your BBKA News article makes me wonder if what I thought was bad luck has a more worrying cause. Of eight hives which I had hoped to winter, the queens in three have failed to produce healthy brood. One was a large cast which eventually produced slabs of drone brood, another a collected swarm (or cast) which produced no brood at all. The third failure occurred in a hive which started queen cells, did not swarm but failed to produce a new laying queen. I am not a novice and at one time ran twenty five hives. I have no recollection of this problem happening before. In common with all beekeepers I have had the occasional mating failure due to bad weather conditions but this cannot have been the problem this summer."

"Just a quick note to say that you are not alone in experiencing poor mating and laying. I tend to graft into queen cups and have had good levels of success over the years. However the last 2 - 3 years I have experienced identical problems to those you outline in your article (high failure rates - and of those that do mate a good % do so only for days and are then no longer to be found - only emergency cells on the few eggs they must have laid). I treat annually for varroa - and have not had any heavy infestations. Like you I can only assume that varroa is the cause."

"...BTW I have been watching your queen problem threads with interest. I have had a couple of quick supersedures this year (new queen in June, superseded in late July/August for apparently no good reason) but don't feel I know enough about what I did or didn't do which may have affected the bees decision.

Next year I am hoping to do some more concentrated queen rearing so will let you know what happens then."

This is typical of the "British Standard Beekeeper". Those with a small number of colonies are not likely to notice a problem until someone alerts them, simply because of the small numbers. Often records aren't kept and it is difficult to remember what happened and when. This person obviously intends to do something positive. R.P.

"Queens that cannot mate are in no-ones interest, and the problem needs fixing by open discussion with the people who have the current facts, or the wherewithal to make a case for funding for more research."

"Thanks for the email. Other scientists and I agree that queen quality is at an all-time low. Many of us believe that we are the cause for it! Chemicals, introduced pests, poor selection all have taken a toll on queens in the US. It is depressing for me to hear the same is true in the UK and other parts of the world as well.

I do believe something must be done. My studies do not look directly at queen quality but I have been able to monitor their longevity in the hive. The results are disappointing.

In 5 months we have 50% supersedure on all of our experimental queens! This is the case in many places in the US". This is from a U.S bee researcher. R.P.

I would welcome comments on this document, so please feel free to contact me.

Roger Patterson.