# Replacing equipment after ccd loss??



## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

Colony collapse disorder has become a broad term for what is mostly indeterminate reasons for loss, check the hive for American foul brood (AFB) and European foul brood. if there is no sign of either, then I would reuse the equipment. your new bees will clean it up. there is no need to strip it all down unless it is very old comb.


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## squareandcompasses (Oct 24, 2008)

Last year we lost over 2000 hives to ccd. you do not have to replace stuff. If u have plastic foundation, look and see if there is pollen in the comb that is Shiney and encapsulated by propolis, if that is the case, scrape the frame where you see that. I assume the equipment has been sitting for a while, pretty much have the box turned on end for awhile so it can dry out the comb if u just discovered it and by the time you get your bees just put them in and feed. do not let your mite count get over 3 or 4/ hundred, just a full treatment of mite away 2 quick strip in the spring and summer and in august use it and afterwards re queen the hive, and in the winter when the queen stops laying and there is no brood, use apivar, and put it in the middle of the cluster to kill off the rest of the mites. just my two cents and what works for me


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## squareandcompasses (Oct 24, 2008)

3 or 4 mites per hundred bees


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

squareandcompasses said:


> Last year we lost over 2000 hives to ccd........just my two cents and what works for me


Not a very convincing 'success' story.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Did I understand this correctly? 



> Mite Away quick strip 2 in the *spring* and *summer* and in *august* use it and afterwards re queen the hive, and in the *winter* when the queen stops laying and there is no brood, use apivar,/QUOTE]
> 
> Three treatments of of MAQS2 plus Apivar in the winter (aren't there temp issues with Apivar during cold weather?). So four treatments per year, plus re-queening in central Massachusetts?
> 
> ...


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

enjambres said:


> Did I understand this correctly?
> 
> 
> I am not a treatment-free beekeeper, but that sounds a bit excessive to me.
> ...


post #17 in the following thread will help to understand, he works for Hackenburg, so don't let his address being in central Massachusetts fool you. so my guess they winter down south, go to almonds, so their spring is alot earlier than yours and his winter is a lot warmer. I also remember another thread recently that said Hackenburg had figured out how to cure ccd, so much for that rumor

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?293731-Should-I-become-a-commercial-beekeeper

also if I remember what Randy Oliver posted this year, his Almond bees had 5 mite treatment's in 2013, so not unusual for commercial beeks.


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## squareandcompasses (Oct 24, 2008)

I'm migratory and catch a lot more mites in the road. I'd at least treat spring and later summer, the apivar isn't temp regulated. and you won't need all 4 strip just one or two would work. Just keep an eye on the mites if you want to treat less. it seems if your mites go above 4 per hundred, any virus that breaks out will be very hard to stop before the queen stops laying for the winter from what I'm seeing working with over 3000 hives. expensive yes, but cheaper than buying a nuc or package every year


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## squareandcompasses (Oct 24, 2008)

I've never said we found a cure for it...


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

wildbranch2007 said:


> he works for Hackenburg


Going to MAQS and Apivar suggests a shift from shop tow.........uh........alternative treatments. Also....one must wonder, after all of Hackenburg's yelling about neonics, why he thinks pounding the daylights out of mites is going to help.


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## squareandcompasses (Oct 24, 2008)

We do and have seen mites above 5 6 and 7 but the tendency is the ones that are keep their mites low and don't get over stressed fair much better. to what I've said are my recommendations not necessarily what I do working for someone else. yes I do in fact run my hives in Massachusetts and NY however I do go south in the winter.


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## squareandcompasses (Oct 24, 2008)

enjambres said:


> Did I understand this correctly?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## squareandcompasses (Oct 24, 2008)

beemandan said:


> Going to MAQS and Apivar suggests a shift from shop tow.........uh........alternative treatments. Also....one must wonder, after all of Hackenburg's yelling about neonics, why he thinks pounding the daylights out of mites is going to help.


mites are the only variable we can control of what seems to be triune reason for collapse. and also working for another beekeeper who does much less pollination and more honey prodution, keeping mites levels low works very well for them.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Oh, I see - I have been confused by the Hamden County addy (I went to UMass, so I knew the climate is not that much different than mine in northeastern NY).

So you are using one MAQS treatment in Spring and one in "summer" which is the same as "August", so two MAQS and then a late run of Apivar in "winter", which would be winter in the south, not the one here in the NE, right?

Is there enough time in the northeast (for resident colonies) for a session of MAQs in the spring? I know it's just a week, but that's period here when here the temps might be unreliable. I am in Z5, barely scraping out Z4, and we plant our tomatoes *after *Memorial Day, to give you an idea of my climate. 

Maybe I should be thankful that I have a long cold winter when the bees, and the mites, are slooowed way down!

I have been wondering what consequences the modern migratory beekeeping business model have on the spread and virulence of mites throughout the country.

Enj.


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## squareandcompasses (Oct 24, 2008)

I would still have a spring treatment if you need it. If I were doing it up there year round, I would probably treat in April or May to kill mites if I didn't do a winter treatment. As for winter treatment, I do it to mine while it's still up north and broodless a couple weeks before there are shipped down the road as a clean up treatment since it only kills mites on bees and not in the brood. i do it that way so they have the spring build up time virtually mite free since all the mites at the time of treatment were on the bees and not hiding out of reach of the treatment in the brood. monitoring mites however is the biggest thing. and I wouldn't do a count for the winter treatment in early December, I'd just treat then regardless. If that makes sense at all to you.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

squareandcompasses said:


> I've never said we found a cure for it...


didn't mean you, someone else said in a thread that Hackenburg had fixed his problem I think using radiation on the deadouts. If I can find it I will post it.


page 3 post #44

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...ts&p=1052204&highlight=Hackenburg#post1052204

The scientists have figured out CCD, but not in this country. I presented the CCD info from a peer review journal to a State Entomologist, and she refused it. If she acknowledged it, her grant money would disappear. Open your eyes. Hackenburg is still in business, he has found he answer, because his livelihood depends on it. The American researchers livelihoods depends on NOT finding an answer.


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## buncombbee (Feb 25, 2014)

Thanks for all the info on mite management, but this is looking like a classic case of CCD. What Im really looking for is info on whether or not I need to clean or ditch my boxes and frames and most of all are the 9+ frames of honey stores that remain contaminated in any way that could affect my new package coming this spring?


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

buncombbee said:


> Thanks for all the info on mite management, but this is looking like a classic case of CCD. What Im really looking for is info on whether or not I need to clean or ditch my boxes and frames and most of all are the 9+ frames of honey stores that remain contaminated in any way that could affect my new package coming this spring?


If you really had ccd then squareandcompasses is telling you above that they reuse the equipment successfully, since I can't identify ccd, what I do is mark the boxes ccd2013
and then reuse them, if the hive dies again, then I replace all the equipment. so far all of the equipment is still in service.


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## rkereid (Dec 20, 2009)

I'm no scientist, but the ones I've talked to have indicated that viruses and to some degree bacteria do not live very long once their hosts die. So if your bees die, and then the left over mites, there probably are no living virus after about a week. But if the collapsing colony is robbed out as it is crashing, or the affected bees drift to other colonies during the collapse, then the pathogen will survive, and spread. That is assuming the pathogen is a virus, which is probably likely considering the abundance of varroa (a major vector) in the bee environment.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

squareandcompasses said:


> just a full treatment of mite away 2 quick strip in the spring and summer and in august use it and afterwards re queen the hive, and in the winter when the queen stops laying and there is no brood, use apivar, and put it in the middle of the cluster to kill off the rest of the mites.


Sounds like an aggressive strategy but after re reading it and knowing where squareandcompasses keeps bees I'd say its probably a good strategy for his operation. Key word "re-queen the hive" after his acid treatment. 
I know beekeepers here that use this treatment and they have trouble finding the proper conditions to apply the strips. I have herd of huge trouble with scorched brood and missing queens because of temperature related problems. In our area because of our small treatment window its hard to hinge a proper mite control strategy on the quick strips.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

rkereid said:


> I'm no scientist, but the ones I've talked to have indicated that viruses and to some degree bacteria do not live very long once their hosts die.


Some viruses can remain dormant for years without a host. AFB comes to mind.


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## jonathan (Nov 3, 2009)

AFB is not a virus. It is a bacterial spore which can remain dormant for a long time.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

jonathan said:


> AFB is not a virus. It is a bacterial spore which can remain dormant for a long time.


My apologies....let me rewrite:
Some bacterial spores can remain dormant for years without a host. AFB comes to mind.


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## buncombbee (Feb 25, 2014)

Thanks all for the food for thought. Wildbranch2007, I will use your great idea of marking the boxes.


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