Hi all,

Bit of a strange one this. On Sunday I had to do a few anti swarming splits, nothing unusual and all went well. As I had a few queen cells to use I made up a mating hive, one of the Warnholz ones. No issues and I gave the bees a lump of fondant to get going on.

I checked them today and the queen had emerged but all the bees had become black including the queen. They were still active and flying but they look like they've been dipped in oil. I looked up on the web and saw CBPV leads to black bees but I've never had this before and for it to happen to every bee in 4 days seems very quick. Also the bees were flying and mobile and not acting like the symptoms described for the virus.

One thing I thought was the heat? It was really hot today and the poly hive was in a very exposed location and the bees were all tightly clustered as seen in the pic. Could this be the cause? Any thoughts?

2014-06-06 18.46.49.jpg