My bee's retained eye caps

As you guys may have read before, I noticed that my bee had retained eye caps from a previous owner. I got to the stage where I decided I needed someone more experienced to come and check him over as I was getting concerned at how steel grey his eyes were. The woman came over today to remove the stuck shed on his head and I was appalled by the findings. I'll give background about the bee for those that aren't aware.

I bought this little guy with my albino female and het genetic stripe female on the 15th of last month from a private seller; he had bought them on the 22nd September from a reptile expo over here in Doncaster (going by the weights this must have been when he bought them!) The albino weighed in at a tiny 60g, the het gs at 174g and the bee at 77g. I was under the impression they may have been sold too young due to the weights but they have all been eating very well.

When I got my bee home I saw his eyes were very blue and believed him to be in shed, I contacted the seller who said that he had recently shed at the beginning of November and the albino had shed four weeks prior to me buying her (but this mustn't have been with him from my calculations on weight) so the bee wasn't in shed. Turns out he had stuck shed and retained eye caps.

The woman who has helped me before in sexing my snakes came today and discovered my bee had not one pair of retained eye caps, not even two pairs but 4 pairs of retained eye caps! This would suggest to me that he has never had a good shed! She managed to fully remove three of the pairs and most of the fourth and it looks like he is going into shed again.

I was very shocked by the number of retained eye caps and feel like I acted in time as he couldn't have gotten off 5 sets in his next shed. Not looking for advice here, just an update on my little guy.

Oh my goodness!! I'm so glad that you were able to get all those eye caps off! 4 pairs is so ridiculous! But in your care I know he will start having perfect sheds and no more stuck eye caps :) I'm glad he's doing better! Thanks for the update.


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I'm fortunate to have people around me, who I have only recently met, who will come and help me and show me the correct things to do. I would be lost without assistance from those with more experience and I'm pleased I decided I was at a stage where I was uncomfortable with how his eyes looked.Nothing would remove this stuck shed - I tried bathing, pillowcases etc etc. Hoping this should help his next shed to be a bit nicer for him and I can get him up to weight; he's such a lovely royal and a joy to have so glad I could find someone to help him :)

It is relieving to see new keeper's who know when they are out of their comfort zone ask for more experienced help. I'm glad that the woman could help your little bee. Hopefully he will start putting on some weight for you now.

Fortunately he's a great feeder! Hoping the stress of today hasn't affected him too much but it was necessary and I'm feeling a lot happier about him now. Although he was eating, handling etc just fine I didn't feel comfortable about his retained eye caps and it looks like this has paid off :)