# Headless Bees?????



## k9 (Feb 6, 2008)

I started the "Deadout" thread and thank you to all that answered, however... today I opened the hive sure that it was a deadout as it is 20 degrees here today to find a bunch of headless corpses...???? 
They were mostly on the bottom board of the hive but there were clumps of them also on some of the frame tops. 

I saw bees out on cleansing flights in 30 degree weather in Feb. with many not making it back to the hive as i would find them frozen in the snow. I checked many of the bees at that time and did not mind any mites on them. Thoughts?


----------



## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

Possibly phorid fly.


----------



## k9 (Feb 6, 2008)

TxMex said:


> Possibly phorid fly.


I did not think we had those in Michigan but it looks like we do, after my coffee i'm going to go back and comb through the corpses and see if i can find any larve it the bees.


----------



## k9 (Feb 6, 2008)

They look like this,


----------



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Like I said send a sample to the Maryland bee lab. Just do a search for USDA bee lab Maryland to find their web site. The web site will tell you how to send a sample to them to look at and give you and Idea what caused the die off. Only cost is the sample shipping, lab work is tax payer funded. I use the USPS cassette flat rate box to ship samples. Used to be 4.75 and the package was delivered in 2 to 3 days.

 Al


----------



## k9 (Feb 6, 2008)

Al, going through the corpses i was unable to find any number of them that appeared to be fresh deaths, most of them looked to be decompsed to some extent. I find it odd as I saw bees flying in Feb. and we have had no warm weather. So i was unsure if them would be able to work with them or not. I checked the site and they di not want decomposed bees, they want 100 samples to work with.


----------



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Pull the frames and look at the bodies in the dead cluster.
Never know when the ones on the bottom board died.

 Al


----------

