# What would you do with it?



## SilverFox (Apr 25, 2003)

Feed it back, from what I understand the way you do it is up to you, either 50/50 or just the way it is, with the latter way they will less to process and it will help to build up their winter stores, either way.


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

All honey, in every hive tested by Beltsvilles Dr. Shiminoko showed the prescences of AFB spores. They can actually test honey and tell if and when a hive is going to have problems. I do not feed honey back to the bees for that reason. If you do choose to do so keep in mind you want to locate the supers or honey source away from the hives to avoid robbing. You will also be feeding and exchanging with other bee hives within the area of forage.


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## SilverFox (Apr 25, 2003)

I guess I should have said 'If you are sure you know where the honey came from and sure the hives are healthy' feed it back.
But I kinda figured that would be implied.


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## iddee (Jun 21, 2005)

I would feed it back. As joel said, ALL honeys tested positive for afb spores. My guess is it has no more spores than the rest of your hives. I would set up a feeding station a hundred feet or more from your nearest hive and let them at it.
They will reprocess it back to good honey, and may well need it for the winter. Those beach winds of yours are the coldest I've ever felt.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I'd feed it back.


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

Here's some food for though about feeding honey back to bees.

A study was done *(Van Eaton) placing wet honey supers from hives showing only 4 or 5 infected larvae (easily missed in an inspection even by an experianced beekeeper) in an apirary of 40 hives. No brood in the honey supers, just honey after extracting. 20 got the wet supers off the very negligibley infected hives, 20 did not. Within 2 days ALL 40 hives tested positive for AFB spores (despite no obvious robbing) and 45% of colonies receiving infected supers developed active AFB infections. 

Now I believe there are a few on this post that would identify foulbrood in a hive with 5 infected larvae. I'm absolutly sure most would not until infection became much more obvious.

So if you are really experianced, positive you know what you are doing and have really checked, feed honey. If not you are rolling the dice. Foulbrood is not the rare player of the sulpha and pre-TM resitance days. I've helped clean out and burn 2 yards this year with folks who thought they new what they were doing. It was a very painful experiance for them to watch their money and efforts go up in flames.(both attended the master beekeeper course at Cornell and had seen active AFB). This is one area we need not be cavalier about and say because I have done it and not gotten infection it is safe!


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## iddee (Jun 21, 2005)

I have driven a car, but people die every day. I may tommorrow. There's always a chance. I have fed honey from my own hives, not someone else's, for thirty years. I may lose them all this year, but that's a chance I'll take, rather than lose all the honey I have fed back and all that I will be feeding back. I just think the reward outweighs the risk, like driving a car.


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

Well, unlike driving a car, foulbrood has become more dangerous (common) due to resistance over the past couple of years and will continue to spread as resistance spreads. You may be experainced enough as a driver and a beekeeper to take the risks. You may not have foulbrood prevelant (yet) in your area. Many of the 3000 on this post are in areas of prevelance and will get the experiance of cleansing a yard because they lack experaince and follow the advice of experianced people like you who say it's safe because you've done if for 30 years. Never mind current scientific evidence about current real time circumstances.


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## SilverFox (Apr 25, 2003)

Something else that an older beek told me is that it is no longer required that you burn the entire hive but just the affected frames, now true that may be just in Washington, but still it makes sense, the AFB is, to my understanding, something that affects not the whole hive at once, but frame to frame. So, I would think, by just burning to affected frames you would have the same effect as destroying the entire hive, if the spores are in the cells. you would removing the problem cells and leaving the 'healthy' ones.??.??.
Lighten up Joel; Not all people follow science. just as not all people follow the flow of nature, I choose to follow what works for me and take into consideration advice that is given to me, and will use what I feel to be the best, maybe a combination of the two or a number of sugesstions.
One hundred people can do the same thing and wind up with one hundred different results.
It has been said before 'what works for one person may not work for another.'
When I do an extraction I open feed the honey, that I don't keep, back to my apairy and, so far, have only one spot of suspected AFB on one frame in the space of 3yrs, and that was before I joined this web-site and before I knew what AFB was. Then I cut out the affected cells, mind you this was before I knew "what you were sopposed to do" and have not had any ferther problems, so far, with AFB.


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

Studies show it is in all the honey, all the bees and all the pollen in an infected hive and often in deadouts the scale is on the frames. The hive body, bottom boards and lids as well as excluders, feeders etc are of minimal concern and can be treated/cleaned to kill or remove any "stray spores". It is important we realize that only foulbrood once wiped out beekeeping in this country at a time when hives were not moved as much, seperated by greater distances and no prevention was avaialable. With growing anitibiotic resistance most beekeepers are completely unprepared managment wise should it once again get a foothold through irresponsible management practices (like feeding back honey) and irresponsible beekeepers. We had 1 in our county (one of the Cornell Master coursers, should have known better) who had 80+ hives melted down from AFB. Not just inexperianced but had too much money and too many bees. Our area has suffered huge losses over the past 5 or 6 years. The state inspector literally burned our local bee club out of existance. We decided we had too much invested to not win this battle and spent a considerable amount of time learning about the process and have done very well as has another sideliner I work with often. We have focused on New Zealand and Australian Studies as they do not allow the use of antibiotics. We also keep track of anyone near us and spend time helping them get educated and in some cases clean up.


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## SilverFox (Apr 25, 2003)

I read and my mentor is a bee keeper who has over 500 hives in Wash and Oregon while he choses to use chemicals and the like he also follows my bee keeping and use of no=chemicals. All I was saying is that their is 'No expert" (IMHO) in the field of bees, you can run all the tests you wish and, unless run in a clean environment (ie: a laboratory), can wind up with results all over the spectrum.
While their is a basic guidline to follow their is just as many 'branches' to the end result.
To follow one persons 'tests' could be like the 'blind leading the blind' IMHO experience is the best teacher, and with experience comes the ups and downs as nature invokes the 'survival of the fittest'. I enjoy my bees and tend to take as good a care of them as I would my family, but, I would not expose my family to some treatment because some one said that is the way it is.


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

I agree with you 100%. I don't fault people for treating and using antibiotics, I will use what is available when needed. They are tools just like a suit and a truck. I just think we have to be prepared for the eventuality that they may fail us and like you, minimize their use. We must not use them in place of good management practices which do very widely. No experts, that's for sure, even though bees have been much the same for much of history what we do with them changes all the time. I'm not concerned with the MBushes and Idees that are near me. Their experianced and will know what is in their hives and protect themselves and me. I've met many, including the one who got me started, who's bees are a big plan with little time to support, a bad combination.


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## SilverFox (Apr 25, 2003)

I do not fault people for using what 'Works' for them just as I hope people don't fault me for using what works for me.
You use chemicals and I don't. I choose not to use chemicals just as you choose to to use chemicals. Perhaps some day the role will be reversed. And then again perhaps not.


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

That's is OK if what you are doing does not affect me (and other beekeepers) negatively. The newbie guy with un-noticed active foulbrood who is feeding honey back to bees (or fails to remove active dead outs allowing robbing) is also feeding all the other hives, kept and wild, in a given area and actively spreading the disease.


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## Tia (Nov 19, 2003)

Thanks for the varying opinions, guys. I just did an inspection of all eight hives yesterday. They're booming with good brood patterns, good stores and an upcoming goldenrod flow. The weather here has turned perfect in the past few days and I've never seen a happier, healthier bunch of bees. I use no chemicals in my hives and there are no other bees within a ten-mile radius of my place (unless there's some ferals I don't know about). Maybe it's a foolish newbie attitude (this is my third year), but I'm not really worried about foulbrood. I think I'll hold onto it for now and field feed when the need arises. I can freeze it, right?


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