Yet another puzzle

[Eric McArthur]

Hi Jon

Glad to hear that! I thought you posted a comment early in the exchange replying to a post by myself where I commented that a goodly number of folk had been hitting the thread. viz "I only looked at the thread to find out if it had hopefully ended" or some such! Apologise all round!

Eric

[Jon]

That was someone else - can't remember who. I am one of the main culprits for propagating the long threads.

[Eric McArthur]

Hi Gavin
Over to you! I'll email the material and you can work your magic on it!! Contact he editor in English and ask him to put you in touch with Fritz Kropf to confirm his findings. The Swiss Bee Health dept will also have info on the case!

The editoe of the Swiss magazine is Dr Robert Sieber Email:bienenzeiting@bluewin.ch

Eric

[GRIZZLY]

At least the thread has reached a level I can understand.All this "high-falluting" academic stuff is o.k.for you university types ,I only have the equivalent of a degree in engineering-not bi-onics or whatever you name your following.Can we not keep discussions to a "kiss" level for us mere mortals?.

[gavin]

Eric wanted these images posted. The two pages of his Bee Keepers Quarterly article on EFB and feeding sugar. I've cut the second one up so that the text is more easily readable at this resolution.

G.


BKQ1..jpg

part2..jpg

part3..jpg

part4..jpg

[Eric McArthur]

Hi Gavin

Just to recap!
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Gavin stated:
As to why Eric's suggestion to feed EFB-infected colonies went down like a lead balloon - well, Eric has no experience of the disease, doing anything other than notifying the authorities on suspicion of disease and following their instructions is illegal and ought to result in prosecution, and the favoured treatment for treatable cases does already involve the feeding of syrup. Add to that the fact that most beekeepers are already aware that keeping your bees relatively unstressed from lack of food or other disease will help them avoid active infection, and you can easily see why Eric wasn't immediately worshipped as the saviour of beekeeping in EFB-affected areas!

[Eric McArthur]

Hi Gavin

Just to recap!
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
Gavin stated:
As to why Eric's suggestion to feed EFB-infected colonies went down like a lead balloon - well, Eric has no experience of the disease, doing anything other than notifying the authorities on suspicion of disease and following their instructions is illegal and ought to result in prosecution, and the favoured treatment for treatable cases does already involve the feeding of syrup. Add to that the fact that most beekeepers are already aware that keeping your bees relatively unstressed from lack of food or other disease will help them avoid active infection, and you can easily see why Eric wasn't immediately worshipped as the saviour of beekeeping in EFB-affected areas!

[Eric McArthur]

Hi Gavin
Despite the time lapse since the last post in this thread I note that it is still sustaining hits. You have informed me that this phenomenon was due to phantom browsers and machine generated probes - sounds like a good story but I note that very few of the other threads have been battered quite so much - if at all! Any answers? I am snowed in at the present time and now have time to kill! At the time I didn't think your statement in the previous item of the thread about my acumen relative to knowledge of EFB worthy of a reply. With some 43 years in the craft and 38 years as a semi- commercial beekeeper producing around 2 -- 3 tonnes of honey/year and being the only bona fide bee breeder and queen rearer in Scotland; selling 4 frame nucleus colonies and queens as far South as Portsmouth and North as far as Thurso from 1972 up to 1997, when Varroa was discovered in Cockington, Devon. Realising that beekeepers were the prime cause for the rapid spread of Varroa world wide I ceased trading in bees. Check my advertisements for bees in the Scottish Beekeeper from 1972 onwards. I reckon you would have been at that time either a mere twinkle in yor dad's eye or somewhere in the primary school grades.

Did you ever take up my suggestion to contact Dr Robert Sieber about the crystal sugar feeding (not treatment!) used by Kropf, which appeared to inhibit EFB in his colonies, despite the condition being on the increase in Switzerland - if you go back a few years in the SB you will find that I have actually done quite a bit of translation from the Swiss and German Bee Press on the disease. You obviously must know that before this sad outbreak of EFB in the commercial apiaries that the disease was on the point of being removed from the "Notifiables" by the DEFRA (now FERA!); a point I made in the EFB article which you missed in your need to condemn the postulation. Your "white" at my "black" does you no great credit. Kropf and myself have proved to our own satisfaction that crystal sugar, accessible to the bees in late winter /early spring inhibits EFB. History is littered with rubbished ideas, contemporarily outwith accepted wisdom, which later become the accepted norm. Schirach, Mehring, Dzierzon, Gerstung, Janscha, von Frisch, Sprengel, Wegener, are but a few examples of the better known 'pariahs' of yester year. It is not only good to think, it is also good express ideas which are novel and often unacceptable. Karl von Frisch was treated like a "Crazy", when his book on the language of the bee was first published - Society ultimately bestowed the Nobel Prize on him for his pioneering work. I hope we can continue to exchange Polemics as time goes by perhaps without rancour and with honesty! It is good to talk!

Eric McArthur

[Pete L]

Hi Eric
i'm sure its just a slip of the pen so to speak,but we first had varroa down here in Devon in 1992,not 97.

[Pete L]

With regards to actually spotting efb infected larvae,they seem to be easier to detect/find when there is a good honey flow.
Reason being that during a honey flow many more bee's are very busy with this work, and larvae can be neglected/under fed a little more,thus making detection easier as more die in the cells,and less housework going on to remove them as fast. During quiet times,and with plentiful stores in reserve, there is likely to be far more bee's with not much to do but housework, and feeding the often reduced amount of larvae far better...so most will survive as they are being well fed/cared for,plus infected larve removed much faster by the large force of semi redundant bee's.
Just to add our local bee inspector of a great many years experiance also,prefers to check colonys during a good flow,and finds more cases of efb at these times than any other, in reasonably strong colonys.