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Thread: A bad day at the association apiary

  1. #1
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Default A bad day at the association apiary

    Many thanks to Bill and Sean for another session preparing stuff for our association apiary. Eight days ago I bought two colonies for the apiary from a beekeeper who was giving up for health reasons. I might have named him elsewhere so the next thing I'm going to do is edit that out (*). His bees were inspected two summers ago and found to be free of serious disease at the time. We were not far from there on Thursday night to see EFB in the flesh as it were. So after finishing the work, Bill headed off home and Sean and myself lingered and went to inspect the two colonies, both on double brooded Smith hives. The first was a lovely, mild colony without any problems that we could see. The second was tetchy, suffering from too much Varroa, quite a bit of chalkbrood .... and .... well, what can you see? Here are two frames, each in distant view and two progressively closer views. See what you can see in the distant view, which is similar to what you see when holding a frame up.

    (* can't find it - didn't want to expose the fellow as he is a kindly gent who genuinely wants to help)

    Frame 1:


    closer ...



    closest ....





    And here is frame 2:



    closer ....



    and closest ......

    Last edited by gavin; 04-06-2011 at 11:44 PM.

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    That's bad news indeed.
    There seem to be a lot of larvae affected - ie classic symptoms of EFB
    What have you done with the colony?

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    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Hi Jon

    I would say only one on the first frame, and one maybe two on the second. We saw perhaps 5-6 cells on three frames, not a heavy infection but a clear positive nevertheless. Can you see more than that? There is a lot of chalkbrood and the colony has a problem with Varroa. Mr X said that he hadn't been in them since last year. Unfortunately he sold his other colonies to beekeepers in Tayside and beyond. The ones beyond have already made themselves known to the inspectors.

    First act was to take some piccies. Second was to call Steve, our lead bee inspector (at home on a Saturday evening he was happy to discuss the details). Third was to clean up as well as I could as I had the basin, scrubbing brush and washing soda in the boot of the car. Changed gloves to get it, changed gloves to take piccies, hive tools in the basin. Smoker was also given a scrubbing in washing soda. These days I always wear disposable gloves for my beekeeping, and Sean did too. The suit will get its second laundering in 4 days, but I'll wait until after I go back tomorrow if the weather is good enough.

    The colony is a strong double-brood one. No danger of it being robbed. It is starting to make swarming preparations (we saw only 5 of 22 frames) so I may go through it tomorrow to make sure that it will not swarm. The inspectors will come on Monday or Tuesday and if it is able to be shook-swarmed I'll do it as soon as I can after that, under Steve's instruction. I'll wait for them to come to have a better look at the other one as I'm pretty sure it isn't going to swarm.

    Gavin

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    In there first frame there seem to be a lot of large larvae to the left of the frame lying at an unnatural angle.
    Surely they should be curled up flat on the bottom of the cell.

    PS. I have never seen EFB in the flesh, only in photos.

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    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    It is much easier with the actual frame in front of you. Those cells do have curled healthy larvae but you only see the edge due to the angle of the lens. A high resolution photo of that area is on its way to you.

    There are cheap flights over from Belfast but you'd have to be quick!

    G.

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    Reading on the phone but the photos don't look good. Very reminiscent of the colony I saw last year, clearly infected but still soldiering on and in circumstances that were also very similar in terms of how it got there.

    Can we reach a point where EFB isn't seen as a failing on the part of the beekeeper i wonder?

    As a slight aside do we treat EFB "too seriously"? I noticed with interest that from an EU perspective it doesn't seem to be regarded as a notifiable disease as it seems to be more or less regarded as endemic in colonies and only becomes a problem, well, when it becomes a problem.

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    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    When I went through it with D on Monday I saw the deformed wings, the frequent chalkbrood and the patchy brood pattern - it looked like typical PMS (parasitic mite syndrome). I had bees like that myself when testing colonies for Varroa tolerance. Now I guess that EFB was also part-responsible for the brood pattern. I think that it is a light infection, but we'll see.

    I'll go through my own bees today (with a clean suit and hive tool). It seems possible that I spread it from mine to these as mine have been at risk too, quite close to a heavily infected apiary in 2009. I'll know soon enough ...

    On relaxing the controls on EFB, I don't think that is sensible at least yet. We have a problem in Tayside but the rest of Scotland is free, bar the odd outlier. Tayside has been a major supplier of bees to other parts of Scotland and that movement needs controlled until the disease is properly under control. On Thursday we met a commercial beekeeper who is fully committed to ridding his operation of the disease as far as he can manage. We need that same level of commitment from all beekeepers, commercial and otherwise. Then we might be down to a low level of sporadic occurrences. There are two impediments to getting there: not all in the commercial sector are as well clued-up as Murray, and there is an army of hobby beekeepers out there of varying degrees of skill, beekeeping knowledge, and, as Jon reminded me, eyesight. Do people need to take an eyesight test to be beekeepers, similar to driving?! It is clear that the more we can get involved in education the better things will be. I might have spotted those few cells partly because of the visit to Murray's on Thursday.

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Reading the various beekeeping forums there is a plethora of posts from people who can never find queens, never see eggs and some even claim to be unable to see larvae. The chance of your average beekeeper noticing one or two dodgy larvae on a frame has got to be slim.
    I am really short sighted but I look over the top of my specs when I need to look closely at a frame.
    I do grafting without my glasses as well as I can focus up close to the larva I want to move.

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    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Just to make it clear for anyone looking in, on the first frame you are looking for a melted-down larva at the bottom of the frame. In this case it is a drone larva. Maybe the bees started to cap it then changed their minds? On the second frame again it is a melted-down larva looking like a piece of white wax, in the middle of the frame. There is a second one that could be chalkbrood or EFB, or possibly both together if that is possible.

    There are probably multiple reasons for the poor brood pattern in this colony. On Thursday night we saw colonies with some EFB but good brood patterns.

    I have slides somewhere of other stages affected by EFB, photos I took near the start of the discovery of the outbreak in 2009. Very young larvae dead and brown. Larvae that were sealed and died inside. I'll try and put them up here later tonight.

    Bear in mind that you are seeing frames from which the bees were removed. We were initially looking through it for queen cells with a covering of bees on the frames, brushing them aside where they may have been hiding something. A full search for brood disease means throwing the bees off every frame with brood but it was a cold afternoon and this colony is fierce at the best of times.
    Last edited by gavin; 05-06-2011 at 12:17 PM.

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    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Default Doh!!!

    [noise of some serious back-pedalling and screeching of brakes ..... ]

    OK then, here goes, I WAS WRONG!! (Doesn't happen that often folks, honest, that's my story anyway)

    Steve and Angus came and checked through them. Plenty of dodgy larvae samples taken and some sent off to the lab for confirmation ... but ... the test kits used on the spot were negative! Seems like it is Parasitic Mite Syndrome rather than EFB.

    So there you are, some of the better pictures of PMS on the web. I feel a bit silly but you live and learn.

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