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Thread: European Foulbrood

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    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Default European Foulbrood

    You know that summer is well underway when the EFB reports start to come in. Tonight I received a notification of EFB within 3 km (they've reduced the circle from 5 km) of my main apiary. Now why did I keep that swarm?!! A positive in the apiary this year would cause a lot of bother given the wide distribution of my bees this summer. Looking forward to seeing Paul or one of the other inspectors before long.

    A few reports of EFB are already in for Perthshire and West Lothian: https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/bee...idenceMaps.cfm

    It is a good time to do that thorough inspection of brood, shaking off all bees, looking for discoloured, twisted or dead larvae, large and small, and knocking off the cappings of any suspect sealed cells to peek inside.

  2. #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    You know that summer is well underway when the EFB reports start to come in. Tonight I received a notification of EFB within 3 km (they've reduced the circle from 5 km) of my main apiary. Now why did I keep that swarm?!! A positive in the apiary this year would cause a lot of bother given the wide distribution of my bees this summer. Looking forward to seeing Paul or one of the other inspectors before long.

    A few reports of EFB are already in for Perthshire and West Lothian: https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/bee...idenceMaps.cfm

    It is a good time to do that thorough inspection of brood, shaking off all bees, looking for discoloured, twisted or dead larvae, large and small, and knocking off the cappings of any suspect sealed cells to peek inside.
    Those figures look very bad historically
    Were most of the cases in a few apiaries?

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    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    The real figures were a lot worse than the official figures, I know that for sure. The disease was and is patchy. Some badly affected apiaries, some light, some free. Some bee farmers with few cases (I think all locally had some), some with some, one in particular (well, come to think of it, two) was/were heaving as they say. The bigger one with the big problem has done a lot to clean up. Don't guess please!
    Last edited by gavin; 15-07-2013 at 10:35 PM.

  4. #4

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    Sorry to hear that Gavin. It must be a real worry for you. Tell us how you get on and I'm sure everyone here will have their fingers crossed that you get a negative.

  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    The real figures were a lot worse than the official figures, I know that for sure. The disease was and is patchy. Some badly affected apiaries, some light, some free. Some bee farmers with few cases (I think all locally had some), some with some, one in particular (well, come to think of it, two) was/were heaving as they say. The bigger one with the big problem have done a lot to clean up. Don't guess please!
    I remember the standstill orders that were in place
    These diseases are no-ones fault in the sense that you, me, anyone can be hit at any time
    Moving bees around increases the risks - lots of folk taking bees to heather for instance

    I think the test kits should work but there was some suggestion at the time they were not reliable
    They are like the potato blight ones they work well but only if you get the right sample I suppose
    Last edited by The Drone Ranger; 15-07-2013 at 10:45 PM.

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    Our local bee inspector talked to us about test kits for EFB and AFB. They actually trialled several infected hives with about 10-15 beekeepers and asked them to test them using the kits.About half failed to get a positive result from the infected hives.!

    When they retried - following the instructions properly - they got positive test results.

    RTFM...

  7. #7

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    I just set up a new apiary in Linlithgow this week, my previous site was close to Linlithgow but as I lost all my colonies and updated it on Beebase perhaps that why I haven't heard about it.
    Steven

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    Hi
    what is the procedure for treating AFB and EFB in the UK?
    Here E/AFB is treated by eradication of the affected colonies (either killed or if only mildly infected through [making & starving] artificial swarms) and testing of all colonies in a 1km radius (straight away and again after 2 months) + material and colony movement ban of course.
    In the USA they just dose with antibiotics - so never really cure the cause, just treat the symptoms- one reason I think that their losses are so much higher there.

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    My understanding is shook swarm for EFB and burning of bees and equipment for AFB

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    Here's a beekeeper with a novel approach to detecting foulbrood: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-0...er-dog/4795960

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