# Frustrated - Let's talk about European Foulbrood!



## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

I have been seeing it also, even in bait hives caught on what I didn't realize was possibly infected combs. Some hives respond well to terrymycin patties from MannLake, actually not in patty form just past from a can. Other hives lanquish and I destroy them. It is a "stress" disease, whatever that means. I don't see how an incoming swarm during a honey flow can be under stress. I had one last fall that might have been underfed due to no flow where it was, it recovered excellently with terra and HFCS.


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## psfred (Jul 16, 2011)

There are various ways to deal with this disease, and I took the terramycin approach. Buy Tetra-Bee mix from Dadant, it's ready to use if you want to medicate, it's easier.

You will have to pull the honey supers to treat, and you may not put them back until six weeks after you remove all the residual treatment mixture from the hives, so at this point we are talking the last week of July (three treatments 5 days apart, clean the hive at day 20, wait six more weeks). You can extract what you have, it's fine. I'd not try to hold it that long unless you can freeze it all, the wax moths and SHB will make a huge mess if they infest the supers.

You can also replace the queens, as EFB seems to be a disease that some genetic lines are much more likely to be affected by, but if you do so, you need to wait a week after pinching you current queen or put her in a cage in the hive for a week first, so that you get at least a week without new brood. I suspect the disease is spread by emerging bees caring for new larvae, so a brood break will disrupt transmission.

Pinching the queen and letting them raise a new one will do the same thing, but if you have a bad infestation you may not get a queen that survives.

I lost a hive to EFB this year, started last fall and I didn't know it, then they failed to build up this year and eventually just dwindled away.

The key thing to notice is rubbery scales on the bottom board. These are dead larvae that turn to goo in the cells, but unlike AFB the bees can pull them out easily since they don't stick. Obviously, it's likely that these scales are infective at least for a while.

EFB does not make spores, so once you get the active infection under control, it should go away and not recur.

I would suspect it's present at very low levels in apiaries that are routinely treated for AFB with Terramycin, and if you get a package or nuc from one of these, it may suddenly appear in your hives when conditions are right, having been suppresed but not eliminated by the Terramycin treatment.

Peter


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

>I would suspect it's present at very low levels in apiaries that are routinely treated for AFB with Terramycin, and if you get a package or nuc from one of these, it may suddenly appear in your hives when conditions are right, having been suppresed but not eliminated by the Terramycin treatment.

My bees for the last five years are all from baithives, many of which are swarms from local bee club members who buy packages from commercial sources. One of these sources said about mites, "if you don't treat my bees they will die".


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

EFB is a scourge and there may be dealing with a strain that is more persistent than in the past. In Europe they are destroying the hives and putting the bees on new equipment with terra. I've had flair ups among several hives I've had for a few years. Grease patties with terra are most effective. The dust is less so. It just keeps coming back. Of the six hives that have struggled with it, every one flared up just as the nectar flow came in and all those hives had to be treated. You can control it but it will keep biting you. I have one hive that for three years maintains a low level infection no matter how or how much I treat including requeening and other methods. Hopguard claims to treat it so I am trying that on two hives and I'll report on the diseases and pests page in a couple of weeks. I've started other hives on new equipment this spring with no problems. I'm pretty much committed to shaking all the bees out of the equipment and starting them over if that doesn't work. I'm tired of dealing with it. Some say acetic acid will treat frames so I fumigated some infected frames 1 week with acetic acid and put a swarm on them. So far, they have not shown efb. I'll keep experimenting with that approach and report as well.


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## [email protected] (May 12, 2010)

The first thin I would suggest is to contact your State Bee Inspector, Tony Jadsek (sp?) . He is, by far, one of the best Bee inspectors in the country. He will assertain whether it is indeed EFB or AFB and reccomend a treatment. As other people have written, EFB is treatable while in most cases, AFB will result in the need to burn the hive. At any rate, don't ignore this problem and contact Tony for no BS advise.


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## hummingberd (Aug 26, 2006)

To [email protected]: I did contact Tony. He sent me a link for how to diagnose. It's definitely EFB vs. AFB. I asked him about his ideas on treatment and I got the following response:

"An option to requeening is to cage the queen for a week so nurse bees have an opportunity to clean the disease brood. MN hyg lines of bees are great at cleaning up chalkbrood but I have no experience with MN-Hyg and EFB. I have been seeing EFB in operations pollinating blueberries this spring and also associated with varroa infestations"

As for treating, it almost seems as though once a colony has an outbreak, it's near impossible to get rid of. Those who have responded here are saying that it keeps popping back up. I don't think I have the time, money or energy to rip apart 3 colonies every 5 days for the rest of the summer, just to have the disease continue to come back... and then have to get all new equipment!! 

Is there anyone who's had success just treating and reusing equipment? Or are you finding that you always have to rehive them on new equipment?

I just went to dadant.com and found the tetra mix. They have a shaker can. Is that enough to treat 3 colonies fully? Or do I need something bigger? 

@ psfred, what did you mean when you wrote "clean up the hives?" How do I go about doing that before putting supers back on? 

And what is the proper way to clean hand tools so as not to spread from one colony to the next?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I haven't seen a case of EFB since leaving OH back in 1986. I saw a few cases there and they responded well to TM treatment, as per label instructions. Perhaps in 26 years EFB has built resistance to TM. I don't know. It is interesting to me that it hasn't been found very often in NY, in the past 26 yeares anyway.

I like Tonys' recommendation. I hope that clears it up for you.

By the way, did the EFB look like a larva curled up across the cell w/ a yellowish tinge instead of pearly white? Were you able to pull the dead larva out of the cell. EFB doesn't rope, if I remember correctly. Right? Did you send a sample to Beltsville for Lab Confirmation of your Field Diagnosis?


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## hummingberd (Aug 26, 2006)

sqkcrk - I haven't sent it out, but the larva isn't ropey. Just yellowish/brown larva that have sometimes "melted" in the cell. There's no question about the diagnosis. There are zero signs of AFB. I could send a sample out, but I'm not worried about a misdiagnosis. 

Tony recommends caging the queen for a week. But I thought the brood cycle needed to be broken which takes 24 days? Also, I don't know how to cage a queen... nor do I have the equipment.

I was thinking about banking her in a nuc box that I have, allowing the bees to build queen cells, and then just cutting them out and re-introducing the original queen. I was also thinking about treating one with terramycin, letting one go on its own and trying the requeening method with the third to see which one works the best. But if one method doesn't work well and the EFB persists, I'm concerned about it spreading to other colonies that have been successfully treated.


I can tell you that I believe the "stress" has been caused by the weather. We had a very warm March, and cold April and May. For about 6 weeks now, we've had heavy rains Mon - Fri and sun on the weekends. They were fine in early Spring, but when the rain started, I saw the EFB pop up.


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

I mentioned above that I applied hopguard last week on two hives that have been showing efb all spring in spite of terra dusting treatments. I inspected today after 9 days of treatment and brood is pearly white like it is supposed to be but they are still cleaning up some. I applied another treatment today. We'll see in another week if hopguard's claim to treat efb holds up. Hopguard can be applied with supers on. I'm just trying to get them through an upcoming nectar flow. I went ahead and shook swarmed another strong nuc that had a efb and gave the brood to the other two hives.


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## hummingberd (Aug 26, 2006)

Ok, here's where I'm at:

Contacted all northern queen breeders. Got 2 responses. One from Indiana. When asked if they would ship, I received NO reply. Ordered terramycin from Dadant a week ago, still hasn't come in yet. 2 colonies are beginning to crash the third is still holding up.

I was able to get home from work early enough to go into the worst infected hive. I found the queen, banked her in a nuc box I had. Cut down the queenless hive to 4 boxes of brood, honey and drawn foundation. I'm planning to remove one more box tomorrow, but I ran out of time. 

I'm thinking I'm going to remove or pinch the queen in the other heavily infected colony, then combine the two weakest. When I'm ready I can reintroduce the banked queen, OR let them raise their own. 

Once the terramycin is in, should I just use it anyway? In addition to breaking the brood cycle? Or should breaking the brood cycle be enough? 

I still have the 3rd hive that I plan to treat with Terramycin. They aren't doing as badly, but it's not clearing up on its own. 

Also, can I combine two queenless hives? Will this cause a problem? Should I wait until I reintroduce the queen to newspaper combine?


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

You can get terramycin at most feed stores or tractor supply. It may be labeled duramycine but both are oxytetracycline. 

You can mix with powdered sugar. Extender patties work better. Here's recipe:

4 tsp tm25, 1/8 cup shortening, 2/5 cup granulated sugar or
1 6. ox package, 11 oz shortening, 4 3/4 cups sugar


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

You are lucky it is EFB and with proper planning you should recover. There is a breakout of AFB in Maine right now that was found in an deadout in the eaves of a house that bees from the the area had been robbing out. USDA Beltsville confirmed the AFB infection in samples. Area beeks are crossing their fingers and waiting to see if their bees were involved in the robbing.


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## hummingberd (Aug 26, 2006)

Keith, do you know whereabouts the confirmed case was?


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

hummingberd said:


> Is there anyone who's had success just treating and reusing equipment? Or are you finding that you always have to rehive them on new equipment?


 The first time I had it (11 years ago) I simply removed the couple of frames that had the diseased larva and they got on top of it and it cleared up. I cut the comb out, reused the frames. No treatment. This time a hive has it worse. I'm pulling the worst frames out and will cage the queen tomorrow.


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

Here is the link to the story regarding AFB in South Portland, ME.

http://www.keepmecurrent.com/curren...cle_e0f72d24-aa8e-11e1-976c-001a4bcf887a.html


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

hummingberd said:


> Keith, do you know whereabouts the confirmed case was?


The AFB was reported in South Portland. If you are in Arundel then it is only 20+ miles north of you I think.


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## hummingberd (Aug 26, 2006)

Keth Comollo said:


> The AFB was reported in South Portland. If you are in Arundel then it is only 20+ miles north of you I think.


H.F.S.

Not good.


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## beehonest (Nov 3, 2011)

Humminberd, I guess the real question is how do you want to treat it? There are many ways with ups and downs. Mine had it just before fall, I extracted the honey that was on there, and left one super for them( I always do this). Treated them with the patties, not Mann Lake but local supplier. I have not had anymore outbreaks since and it happened a couple of years ago. Mine was pretty bad the numbers realy dwindeled down and they had a terrible brood pattern. There is no guaranty with any method of treatment.


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## hummingberd (Aug 26, 2006)

Ok, I'm on my second treatment of Terramycin. The two colonies I'm treating looked very weak, and there were tons of drones. Maybe it was time of day I checked them, I don't know. Anyway, I'm starting to see healthy larvae, but still seeing some diseased. I'm guessing that because of the low numbers, the house bees are having a tough time cleaning up and that's why I'm still seeing dead/diseased larvae? 

I'll recheck the colonies in 5 days. If they aren't better, I will just have to combine. Man this is turning out to be a tough year :c


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

That's the problem when EFB goes beyond just a frame or two and there are other negative/stressful factors going on in the hive. Lots of drones, many frames of diseased brood, low worker bee population, all these are elements that make it hard for them to rebound. I sure wouldn't combine them with a healthy hive. You'll have diseased honey getting fed to the good brood. Unless you can isolate the infected bees for a couple days so they use up any honey they have in their sacks.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

I combined three EFB hives last week and today marked four more, quite an outbreak. If they form a homogenous cluster I will remove the unused combs and melt them down or toss them. My solar melter is backed up with last years cappings. I wonder if the lost workers from the combined hive returning to a neighbor hive will spread the EFB? There is also the problem of my burning myself on the hive tools I have to keep torching.


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## username00101 (Apr 17, 2019)

Going to revive this thread, because I know the info in this thread is still relevant today, as EFB is the gift that keeps on giving.

Treatment requires aggressive and early action, colonies generally recover well when beekeepers learn to identify the symptoms.

We now require VFD's which is a whole tribulation in and of itself, but without OTC one needs to make difficult management decisions, and most of us don't have the time or the funds to replace an entire apairy.


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