Apis, good observation! All this pooh is on the inside, happening in just one week.
She lives amongst oak trees that produce 'honeydew' which contains ash. Several of us think the bees have been ingesting oak honeydew containing ash. But ash dysentary appears so close to nosema that it is strongly suggested to treat like nosema just to be on the safe side.
Online Article:
"Here in Northern California, especially in late summer and fall when floral sources are far and few between, oak dew becomes an important supplement to the diet of honey bees. Oak trees are fed upon by wasp larvae that form galls, and in fall bees can be seen collecting the honeydew being excreted by the gall
The only issue is that oak dew is not as digestible by bees as flower nectar because of the high amount of ash, minerals, and possibly the presence of tannins, mold spores, or different proportions of sugar molecules. Some beekeepers believe that oak honey causes dysentery and will remove it and feed sugar syrup instead. Others claim that it causes constipation, the opposite problem, and spray a dilute bleach solution on the bees to “clear them out.”
Sometimes the flow of honeydew is so heavy that the bees plug out the brood boxes, leaving no room for the queen to lay. In this case one strategy is to remove frames of honey and replace with foundation. This causes the colony to consume more honey and draw out the wax, which is helpful all around because the queen is provided with a place to lay and nice clean wax is produced quickly."
