New bees of course

[SlickMick]

After 20 years with them and almost 4 years without them I have got a new colony.

I travelled up to Hatton Vale this afternoon and collected a five frame nuc.

They look like they could have a bit of Italian in them but most likely they are what I call Heinz i.e. 57 varieties. When I last had bees, the SHB was a real problem for me as a result of not being able to adequately deal with them. The beek who sold them used to put oil and diatomaceous earth traps on his hives but now all he does is put a couple of narrow slits and his bottom board, no oil or diatomaceous earth traps. The SHB are chased down through the slots and are free to re-enter the hive. He says that there are SHB in all his hives as there would be in everyone else's here and as long as the hive is in full sun which helps drive the beetle to the bottom of the hive and space is limited for the beetle to do what it wants (i.e. a strong hive) then the SHB are not a problem to him.

AFB was more of a problem for him, showing me a pallet of hives he had just had irradiated. Is anyone else having this problem?

Mick

[BeeMaster2]

Welcome back Mick.
After several years of running my oil trays dry, I just put oil in them under all of my hives Sunday. When I started I used oil in 12 hives for a couple of years and decimated the SHB population. Now they are building up again. All it takes is one slimed hive that is not immediately cleaned out to add thousands and thousands of SHB larvae to your area. The carpenter ants just killed one of my hives and I didn't get to it for a week and I had to use a bucket of soapy water to pour the larvae into to kill them all.

Hate to bee the bearer of bad news but...
Beware, If the seller has AFB and you bought a nuc from him, your bees will probably have AFB in a year or 2.

[yantabulla]

Mick,

I would be more concerned about buying bees from someone who was ignorant of AFB.  At least this seller is able to identify it and is taking steps to control it.

AFB is endemic in Australia and it is a big problem.

Professional & amateur beekeepers are ignoring the requirements to register as a beekeeper and to notify when AFB or EFB is detected.

SHB is a non issue for me.  AFB is a constant concern.

Links to AFB info

https://www.daf.qld.gov.au/animal-industries/bees/diseases-and-pests

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/livestock/honey-bees/pests-diseases

Yantabulla

[Sydney guy]

If you get AFB or EFB don't you have to burn the hive?

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[SlickMick]

Kill the colony, burn the hive, frames etc or alternatives such as irradiation of hives, woodwork and tools.

Notification of authorities etc

Mick

[BeeMaster2]

Sydney,
"If you get AFB or EFB don't you have to burn the hive?"
Only for AFB.
Replace the queen if you have EFB.
Jim

[Honeycomb king]

So slick mick how was your first season back in the game ? Are your fingers sticky

[Wombat2]

If you get AFB or EFB don't you have to burn the hive?

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We talked about this at our Association Meeting yesterday.
For AFB Rules are "kill the bees and destroy the hive"

Several of the "old Boys" have done/do this - Set up a new hive with new frames at the old site. Add some brood frames and nurse bees from another uninfected hive.

Take the infected hive a distance away and shake out all the bees - recover the queen if you can and return to new hive. Wrap empty infected hive in plastic and seal so bees cant get access. - Get it Gamma radiated.

Bulk of the bees will return to the old site/new hive.

Gamma radiation will kill all infection and sterilize all material including honey- feed the honey back to the bees, its no good to sell.

If you can re-queen the hive you will be back up and running quicker than letting them raise their own. This method you only loose some production not a whole hive.

There has been not return of AFB in any of the hives they had done this to.

[SlickMick]

Yes, HK, really sticky.

The colony that I bought turned out to be a real humdinger. It built up so quickly that I could hardly manage it, dropping supers onto it as quickly as possible. Of course I couldn't buy half depth supers and frames fast enough to deal with honey flow so I was having to extract more quickly than I would have liked to. Having gone down to 8 frame boxes sped the pace up a bit and not being as agile as I once was present some difficulties in dealing with it. It was made of the more difficult by the fact that I had disposed of all my bee gear meant that I was resorting to crush and strain.

When I had eight hives of my old house I found the SHB to be a real problem. This was at the time when colonies were first introduced to them and didn't know how to deal with them. Fortunately it seems that the SHB is less of a problem to colonies now as the more hygienic colonies have learned how to deal with them. All I have to protect the colony now is two 3 mm slots cut across the bottom board so that the SHB can get away from the harassing bees and find themselves outside the hive again. Most numbers of SHB I have seen in this colony at any one time is six. Yesterday I went through the brood box and the super and saw only one which I dispatched.

When they swarmed in March I was not surprised as they were overcrowded and I didn't know how to open up the brood box. Since then I have come to realise that I can use two half depth supers on top of each other to move full depth frames out of the brood box to create more room. I ended up having to buy another nuc to combined with what was left of the original colony after the virgin Queen failed to return. Fortunately this is worked.

Some of the paper barks are now coming into flower up here so I'm looking forward to seeing colony numbers rise again. But there are some things that I am going to have to do before spring such as get hold of another extractor, some more boxes, and keep at least two colonies.

Mick

[yantabulla]

Wombat, those sort of practices encouraged by the "Old Boys" is the reason why AFB is endemic in Australia.  It's illegal & stupid.

[Honeycomb king]

I've seen a lot of hives burnt, and beekeepers brought to tears watching their lives go up in smoke. Yes they get some compensation but nothing near the value of what it's worth.  I've studied hives that live with AFB, hives that fall over to it quickly, hives that never seem to get it. My hives are side by side on pallets one hive gets it one doesn't. ? Good years I get down to 2% of hives with it bad years have been up to 15% currently less than 5% My past two years ive replaced all my queen's with hygienic behavior etc. I've tried radiation and my last lot I found not to be cleaned after I got it back. Upon following this up I found that the cobalt was replaced after my boxes were put through (bad luck for me). It was gear that I new was dirty and I assumed it to be clean upon its return so out the gear went, only to infect more hives. The packing, wrapping, delivery, pick up, unraveling, etc make the radiation non viable. Bleach treatment of equipment has worked for me, although again time consuming. I've even bleach dipped frames and returned them to hives with wax etc all intact as an experiment, with great results. Yes I'm aware of the residual affects of the sodium hyper chloride. The problem with any of these treatments, bleach dip, freezing, scorching, eucalyptus/tea tree spray etc  is that you don't know you've killed the bacteria, not for sure so the equipment goes back out in the apiary.  Good luck. So I do several. Say this month when I'm cleaning old frames they will get bleach dip then go into the sun to remove the bleach, then into the freezer for 2 days. Some equipment will also get steam treatment when I've got the boiler going. All tome consuming and all with unknown end result.
I don't believe burning witches (I mean hives) has gotten us anywhere.  Other than to push the problem under ground. And I'm all for people trying other options. Yantabulla your right that wombat2 techniques are not legal and it's still a hive of infected bees, and in time disease will rear its ugly head again.
Next to nosema ceranea AFB is our greatest challenge here in Australia and with little funding it's up to the individual to try to find an answer.
Anyway will be interested in any comments.

[Wombat2]

Neutralize the residual breach with Sodium Thiosulphate AKA Photographic Hypo. We used it in the Army to take the chlorine out of drinking water after treatment - also used in Swimming pool test kits to neutralize chlorine before doing pH and other tests. Very small amount needed.

[PhilK]

I don't believe burning witches (I mean hives) has gotten us anywhere.  Other than to push the problem under ground. And I'm all for people trying other options.

What 'pushes the problem underground' is the methods you are describing - not burning. Burning a hive eliminates the AFB spores permanently (unfortunately it also eliminates all the bees and the hive permanently too).

Treatments like irradiation, bleaching, steaming, freezing etc are treatments where you (by your own admission) don't know if the bacteria has been killed. This is what is causing the problem to persist - people allowing infected bees to survive, and trying to clean hives with methods that are likely not working.

I only have a few hives, and I've never experienced AFB - I am only speaking from an epidemiologic/disease control standpoint.

[Honeycomb king]

So do you suggest to the epidemiology department "burn" any patients that have a disease or would a better course of action be to work with the problem. Perhaps look for a treatment, research etc etc.
I saw my first cases of AFB back in the seventies, I don't know maybe 1977 or 78. I was only a kid then, and AFB was new to us all then. Antibiotics was the answer then. We have realized a long time ago that the answer is not there, although some do still use it and our friends over the pond don't mind splashing it around too.  The other answer then also was to "burn them". 40 years later. Here I am pondering AFB treatment options. Have we gained any ground? Lost any ground?
 The difference from then to now for me is that we have a much greater understanding of what our apiary needs.  Stock management for all agriculture now has a lot of science connected to it. Information is at hand and we can learn from others scientists and lay men alike. Hive health whether environment, diet, forage sources, chemical contact, protein intake etc etc e t c. These are all terms that mean so much more now than they did when I first saw a bulldozer dig a hole in a paddock and bury 140  burnt hives. There are lots of methods out there for control, and maybe your right "they likely don't work. But only trying will we succeed. 
It's a big challenge as what works for one enstar (life stage) of AFB may have no affect on another. The same too for cryptosporidium (nosema), or any other bee disease for that matter.
Many contact me for help with the method I use, it's results are in consistent but still we talk and work on it. We may together have the answer or we could just light a fire and throw another hive on the bar bee (bar bee q), thought I'd finish with a pun on a serious subject.  Thanks.

P.s my guess is that it's someone not from a beekeeping background (maybe even a epidemiologist) may find the answers we seek.

[PhilK]

So do you suggest to the epidemiology department "burn" any patients that have a disease or would a better course of action be to work with the problem.

Well that is never going to occur in human medicine, so there is no point asking that question. I would encourage you to look at mad cow disease and foot and mouth disease for a better parallel - lots of culling and burning there. Not the nicest way to deal with a problem, but a successful one (in those cases).

I agree with the rest of your post in that a lot more work needs to be done to research ways to beat AFB. AFB is a multifactoral disease and there is a lot that laymen can do (ensuring strong colonies, hygienic colonies, forage, chemicals etc) but as a science based person (I'm a veterinarian) I don't think people treating their hives with methods we know don't work will get us anywhere except recycling spores back into the environment. I think it is based in no scientific work, and has the potential to cause further harm to the industry.

I obviously have no where near as much real world bee experience as you (or most people on this board). This is based on scientific readings I've done only - a good discussion regardless!