Deformed wings

[rayb]

Last year we had a lot of bees with deformed wings with many of them just walking away from the hive. This year we have been doing powdered sugar treatments every 7-10 days for the last month and our natural mite drop is around 10 mites/day. We see "some" bees with deformed wings, maybe one or two here and there.

My question is: If we see some deformed wings but seem to have reasonably low mite drops, is there a problem? Can you have DWV with low mite counts? Are a few deformed wings "acceptable or normal" ?

Thanks, Ray

[Michael Bush]

>Are a few deformed wings "acceptable or normal" ?

IMO yes.  A few are acceptable.  But you also have to differentiate deformed wings from frayed wings.  Young fuzzy bees with crumpled wings from old shiny bees with frayed wings.

[rayb]

Thank you Michael, I'll take a closer look. I believe they are new bees.

Ray

[abejaruco]

I have DWV. I have observed that bees with DWV symptom, young bees, can´t sting, while the old bees with frayed wings show the sting. Not sure if I´m right.

[Michael Bush]

Young bees usually can't sting and DVW bees usually don't live long.  I don't know if it's an absolute rule but it's a reasonable assumption.