# Treatment Free - European Foulbrood - Newbie could use advice...



## gnor (Jun 3, 2015)

Here's a good article on EFB. http://is.gd/BMSdWD
In some localities it's a notifiable disease. You can get help from your bee inspector for diagnosis, etc.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

welcome aboard amanda, and sorry to hear that your colony is distressed.

seeing wax moth and/or beetle larvae is actually a pretty serious problem. if it is beetle larvae then it's very possible that they have tainted the feed in the hive and that could be what is making your brood sick. if that's the case i don't think there is very much you can do even with treatments and considering your limited resources. if the conditions get bad enough inside the hive and if there is a queen your colony may abscond (vacate) the hive in search of another home. 

your best bet is to try and find someone with experience in your area willing to come by and take a look and determine whether or not the hive is salvageable. are there any bee clubs nearby?


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## a.steffentn (Jun 25, 2015)

Thank you gnor - that website has good pics and info that I will absolutely study.

squarepeg - Thank you for your reply as well.

I did join a local beekeeping group. They've had one meeting thus far. I guess I could get on their website and try to see if someone could come out. I hate to be that much of a bother to people.

I didn't realize that the beetle/moth larvae could be that damaging. I do not see any slime or moth webbing. I also am not sure that I have seen more than 3 adult beetles this whole month, and none of them inside the hive, but you feel the presence of the larvae alone is serious? 

This is a true bummer.


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

You won't be a bother to anyone in your new club, beeks just love to help out! Give them a call.


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

EFB often goes away when a new queen is added.
AFB is the nasty one.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

it's a tough call without seeing it, and even then it takes lab analysis to know for sure. i've never had efb so i can't speak from experience. i did have discolored brood once but it was from trying a newspaper combine when it was too hot and the brood in the upper box got cooked. have you contacted the supplier of the nuc to see what they have to say?


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## a.steffentn (Jun 25, 2015)

I have gotten in touch with someone in the local bee group and they are willing to come out tomorrow! I hope to get some pictures, but either way, I will post the findings tomorrow afternoon. 
I truly appreciate your replies.


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

You need to send a sample in for testing (even the experts can be stumped) there may be new strains.

Samples; http://www.ars.usda.gov/Main/docs.htm?docid=7472

If it is EFB your comb and equipment will be contaminated for at least a year maybe two, sharing boxes, frames, tools, gloves ... may cause more cases to show up the next time there is a dearth. 

Don't let an EFB hive be robbed, it will spread. 

Here's some picture for you to compare
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?298750-Pseudo-Laying-Workers
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?304087-What-is-going-on-with-this
http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...d-what-options-(-quot-It-s-complicated-quot-)

Some queens/genetic lines are more susceptible than others, requeen from the queens/hives that don't show symptoms.

Shook swarm is one TF method to get rid of it. I read a study that that said OTC (antibiotics) alone there is a 20% chance of reoccurrence with shook swarm and OTC there is a 4% chance of reoccurrence. 

Most countries that can't use antibiotics quarantine hives/apiaries and burn bad cases or reoccurrences. 

Another study: Packaged bees
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00218839.1965.11100101?journalCode=tjar20#preview
"All colonies derived from infected colonies developed E.F.B" 

I have help a lot of people identify and recover from some bad cases, let me know if you need anything.

Post picture as it can help others.


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## a.steffentn (Jun 25, 2015)

*I sincerely appreciate you all for taking your time to reply on this post.*

So, a few days past when I planned to post, but the days are short and the work list is long! 

The couple that came to take a peek at my hive felt that it was healthy. They felt it was full enough to add a second hive and supplement with sugar water and a pollen patty. Being the extremely inexperienced gal I am, I followed advice. They so graciously donated their time and sweat to me, and I am greatful. They did see the dead larvae that I was talking about, but when we poked several there was no stringiness, so I think they felt it was not an issue and that the bees would take care of the problem.

As soon as the feed bag, pollen patty, and additional deep was placed and the day was through, I panicked! I felt that the additional room was going to make it harder to defend whatever moth/beetle pest I thought was in there. I also feel I should not feed them because I would like my bees to forage and not depend on the sugar water. They are a new nuc, so maybe I am starving them, and need to give them the sugar water? I dont know. Also the sugar water they gave to me had HBH in it. I do not know much about that, but I think, from reading, it messes with microbes in the bees gut. Right after we put the syrup in the hive, it did seem like there was a lot of action - scared of robbing and not knowing if that was what I was seeing - I shoved the entrance full of grass. 

I don't know what I'm doing - but my plan now is to wait two weeks and take another look in my hive, taking photos to share, getting a sample to send out. I know whatever they were fighting (EFB, beetles, moths) may progress in this timeframe, but I am not planning to treat with hard chemicals at this time and I do not know what else I could do to help them right now. 

Thank you - Flower - for the post. I have been studying the forums you included in your post. I may change my mind about treating, but will wait and see what I find when I open the box back up.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

You should send a sample ASAP so that you have the diagnosis sooner. I may just be a case of PMS. I had a couple hives show some signs of EFB, but never discolored larva until it was really dead. Basically the brood food was never discolored. Beltsville results told me I did not have EFB, and the hive had done a decent job of cleaning up whatever was going on in the meantime. My assumption is that it was/is PMS. My hives have been hacked into and sliced up enough the last couple months in an effort to cut out of TBHs and into Langs. Lots of queens getting mated from splits and whatnot. Flow has kicked up so it is probably masking some of the issues I was seeing before. I will be dealing with my mite issue. You cannot learn a whole lot from dead bees and you're not going to "Michael Bush it" in your first year with one hive of unknown lineage.


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## Karen of NH (Jan 30, 2014)

EFB virus in frames will be "contaminated for at least a year maybe two". So what would you do?: Store them for two years, melt them down or freeze them. Would that kill the virus?
Had a similar simptoms last month and had the inspector come but no definiative results/diagnosis of EFB and am looseing the hive.


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

>So what would you do?
You don't want to freeze frames, this is how they store samples of EFB. Freezing will preserve it. 
If you don't need the frames might seal them and store (glacial acidic acid will keep pests out) 
Empty frames, boxes, covers, bottoms... can be cleaned with a 10-20% bleach soak for 10 min. 
Also heat for 10 min, maybe 170ish, you will have to speculate based on this study;
https://books.google.com/books?hl=e...epage&q=european foulbrood resistance&f=false


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## gnor (Jun 3, 2015)

Has anybody used the shook swarm method, and what were the results?
You cage the queen, then shake the bees onto new, clean equipment. Contaminated equipment can be sanitized by soaking in a bleach solution for 10 minutes.


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## a.steffentn (Jun 25, 2015)

It has been a couple weeks and I am more confused now.

Update:

A couple days after my last post I couldn't resist looking in the hive - ****roaches had moved in under the lid. Also, the first adult SHBs were spotted on the frames. Instincts told me to take off the add. deep, not feed them and I also took swabs of the cells I thought EFB was present in to send to the USDA.

It has been about two weeks - during that time it was hot and I noticed bearding every day. I took that as a good sign, as after I added the additional deep I saw no bees outside - but after reducing the hive back to one ten frame deep, much bearding. 
Still waiting on the diagnosis from Beltsville, and planned to wait on getting back in the hive until then, but today I saw no bearding. So - I had to take a peek inside.

Happy to find no sign of any pests - SHB adults or larva. No sign of roaches or anything other than bees. I also saw the queen and saw her lay an egg. I also saw a worker doing the waggle dance for the first time!

Unhappy to find hardly ANYTHING else! All capped brood, honey, larvae, pollen and nectar was almost completely gone. Clean cells - no destruction. No queen cups/swarm cells - nothing. The frames look like they have barely changed, as far as building cells out. Still looks to be about 7 frames with built comb and the other frames pretty clear of everything. Saw very few traces of any brood - maybe 25 capped in the whole box. Saw about two formed white bees that were uncovered and one white-ish larva that was uncurled laying in its cell. 

I dont know what is happening, but I don't see how they can survive with no stores of food.

At a loss.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

If your hive was truly empty of all nectar, honey and pollen, put an anti-robbing device on immediately and begin feeding. It sounds to me as if your hive is starving before your eyes. 

Don't just reduce the entrance - you need a displaced-entrance robbing device, in addition to some kind of reduced-sized control at the point of entrance. (In your hot climate you may want to use screens to reduce the access, not solid material.) 

You should feed entirely within the hive. If you have another box, you can set it (w/o frames) on top to surround a jar feeder set directly on the top bars. I would not add HBH because it can induce robbing. BTW, sugar water is not bad for hungry bees. Nectar and honey are better, but don't confuse sugar's negative health costs to humans with what role it can play for bees. Adult bees pretty much live on a high-carb diet.

You may be in a dearth right now, and without a backlog of stores to feed brood, that could be keeping your queen from laying. If this were my hive I would also consider a small piece (1" x2") of a high quality cmmercial pollen substitute/patty (I use Global brand patties from Betterbee, but there are other good ones, too.) Add only a small piece and check it regularly to see if it's being gobbled up by the bees, not SHB. Since it is laid on the top bars, opening the hive to check and relenish it causes no alarm. Even if you had to give them small pieces daily, or twice daily, to make sure they eat it before SHB can get to it would be a good strategy.

Have you done a mite check recently? Do you know that one rarely sees mites on the bees themselves - you can see the mites on pupae that you cut out of their cells. But I often read new beekeepers commenting that they don't have mite because they don't see any on _adult_ bees. Perhaps they don't realize that not seeing them does nont mean they are free from a serious problem.

What's the state of your bee population? Without new brood in the pipeline it can crash pretty rapidly, which is why there is concern. The lack of bearding may just mean you've already lost a lot of bees.

Is there any chance that this hive could have swarmed and that could be the reason you're not seeing much brood? Sometimes the new queen takes awhile to start to lay consistently.

Seeing a waggle dance recognizing it for what it means is one of the thrills of beekeeping!

Feeding was the correct plan, and I would resume at once, using every strategy you can to avoid secondary problems. But don't llet fear of those secondary issues keep you from providing potentially hive-saving treatment.

Enj.


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## a.steffentn (Jun 25, 2015)

Enj. :

Thank you so much for taking the time to write a thorough response! I am very grateful.

Checking on the hive from the outside after my last post, I saw several dead bees (10 or so) outside the hive. They all had their tongues out. Pretty sure you were right in saying they were starving - so I did feed them. I did not put the HBH in there - just 2:1 syrup in a baggie feeder on the top bars. With 2 lbs sugar and a pint of water, my baggie was bone dry by the next day - so I fed them the same way/amount again. Next day a couple tbsps were left in the baggie, so I repeated the feeding. Plan to keep the feeding up until I get back in there and see signs of a healthy colony (brood in all stages, stores of honey/pollen). My beekeeping friends did leave me a few pollen pattys so I stuck a couple of those in there too. I may reduce the size of the patty, per your advice, so I do not encourage the SHB to come back. On a positive, there were only a couple dead bees outside the hive two days after feeding them again, which was a relief.

I am going to check about a robber screen. I do not have one, but I probably need to get that. I have never seen a mite, or any evidence they are there, either on the adults, bottom board or on any of the pupae I've dug out. I admit, I haven't dug out many - just the few that I thought were infected with the EFB (still waiting on results for that test). I will check a little more thoroughly now that you said it is hard to tell. I'm so thankful for that info.

I couldn't tell the difference in the bee population once I opened the hive. I may not be able to tell from inexperience, but it seems they are the same in size. They could have swarmed though. They have started bearding out front again, since feeding them, but the beard is definitely reduced in size. My earlier conclusion that they didn't swarm was from actually seeing the queen and I saw no sign of queen cells - supersedure or swarm. I assumed that if they swarmed, they would have taken the old queen with them and leave my hive with some queen cells. Or maybe there would be a few swarm cells and one of those hatched and a virgin queen left with them. Since I didnt see any queen cells and I did spot a queen, I thought they must not have swarmed. Of course, this could be completely ignorant - I have so much to learn. When I say there was no brood, though, I mean the cells were almost completely clear of any egg or brood in all stages. It was a very disheartening sight.

Again - so thankful for your reply/advice. I obviously need all the help I can get! I will keep updating this thread as I see changes. Maybe it will help another newbie with the same issues. If I can get photos, I will post them as well - as far as the EFB goes. When I tried to do that the last time, my camera couldn't focus or couldn't zoom in enough to see inside the cells. I just got a picture of the spotty brood. I tried to insert the photo in the reply a couple times, but have been unsuccessful. I'll keep trying - maybe I'll get it to work eventually!

Amanda


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## a.steffentn (Jun 25, 2015)

I resized by pic and I think it attached - posting this to try it out.

If you can see the pic - this is the best one I could get. Girls started to get angry and gave me six good stings for my intrusion. It does show the spotty brood, but there is a cell almost in the center of the pic that looks like a glimpse of discolored brood, but you probably can't tell. This was a pic from a few weeks ago, though, when I actually had brood and nectar.


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

a.steffentn said:


> View attachment 20044
> 
> 
> I resized by pic and I think it attached - posting this to try it out.
> ...


Hi Amanda, when the bees starve they can eat the brood and it can get discolored like in your picture. Look on the internet "image of starved brood " and a pic should come up. This happened tome last year. Enjambres advice is sound. Deb


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## a.steffentn (Jun 25, 2015)

Thank you, Cloverdale. I did not know that - and assume that has to be what happened. 

*::: Update :::

Beltsville confirmed - my hive diagnosis was EFB.* AFB was not found.

My plan of action is to feed, watch and wait. 
As of now, I don't see the good in treating the bees with an antibiotic to try and rid them of this disease. If I am treating the bees with an antibiotic, I assume that it is going to produce weaker bees by eliminating all the good bacteria in their gut, like in humans. I would assume that since EFB reportedly stays in the comb for a couple years, there is a good chance that my weakened bees could catch it again, and then I would be repeating the cycle. Also, if the treatment stays in the comb for 3 years or so, there will be no honey to be had that does not have traces of the treatment in it.

In the last study by the USDA that Flowerplanter posted in this thread, the prognosis section states that results vary *'from very good to very grave..... many recovering entirely from the infection without treatment and without appreciable losses, while others rapidly decline and finally die out.' *Although I am keeping in mind that the study was done nearly 100 years ago, I am still hoping my hive will result the former and not the latter.

Thank you all sincerely for your posts and help.


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## dsegrest (May 15, 2014)

a.steffentn said:


> 1st year, one month old bee-haver here. I have one 10 frame deep I filled with 5 frame nucs, one queen. Location - Palmyra, TN - one hour north of Nashville. Very attracted to the ideals of Michael Bush and his method of beekeeping.
> 
> In the three times that I have inspected my hive I have found the queen, saw eggs, covered brood, capped honey, a small amount of pollen, no mites, a few larva crawling on the SBB and one behind an uncapped white formed bee that I think are either SHB or wax moth, but do not seem to be a problem, and I have seen some hygenic traits in my bees.
> 
> ...


 A strong hive will take care of EFB by itself.


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

Re-queening the hive to change the susceptible genetics is often recommended.


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

>A strong hive will take care of EFB by itself.
Not always, bad cases seldom do. Most of the time there has to be a flow. 

>Re-queening the hive to change the susceptible genetics is often recommended. 
Yes, some queens and genetic lines that are more prone to get it and get it bad. Requeen from the hive that doesn't show symptoms.

Get some feed on them, often a hive with EFB uses up all it store trying to raise brood that dies. They can be out of honey even during a strong flow. 

Also stay away from EO's they destroy bee's probiotics, the same one's that fight diseases.

Don't let it get robbed, or all the hives in your area could get it.


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## Arnie (Jan 30, 2014)

How is your hive doing?

I have been dealing with a similar problem this summer. I decided to treat and re-queen. I found a local beekeeper who has some 'survivor' queens so I am hoping they can be stronger in future. They are looking really good now.

I briefly thought about just letting the bees deal with their problem themselves,,,, live or die,,,, but then I considered the fact that if my dog were to get sick I would take him to the vet, likewise my cats. Are my bees different? Do I not accept some responsibility for their well-being when I place them in the hive?

So I treat them when they need it, but not otherwise.

Just some thoughts. No criticism intended nor am I trying to influence one way or the other. Just sharing.


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

I agree with you Arnie; my way of taking care of the girls I figure I am keeping them in a foreign environment I should try and be least invasive as I can ( still take surplus honey) plus care for them like a farm animal. My way my opinion.


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## a.steffentn (Jun 25, 2015)

Here are some pictures from last weeks inspection. 
Been feeding 2:1 since my last post. They have been drinking/storing the 4lb/2pt mixture every 1-2 days. I have not added any more pollen patties since the first two I placed in there. I saw eggs, uncapped and capped larvae, and pollen stores. The brood pattern looks a little better in these pics, as opposed to my first pictures. It doesn't seem they had built any new comb when I inspected on 7/23, but I did see some pale comb in the frames just from looking down through the top bars when I put the baggie feeder on yesterday. It looks as if their numbers are going up - I am hoping they will fill out more comb so I can add another deep. They are just in one 10 frame deep right now, and I know they need more stores for winter at this point. I am concerned that they will get honey bound since I think we are in a dearth and they are def. storing the syrup - but I do not want to stop feeding if that will stop the comb being built for brood. I am thinking that they need more brood to pull a frame to the top when I add the next deep. Does this sound right?

dsegrest, KQ6AR, FlowerPlanter: Thanks for your replies. I wish my hive was strong, but unfortunately it was just installed this year and only a month prior to finding the EFB symptoms. It is my only hive, so I have no other hive to requeen from. This coming weekend is the local beekeeping assoc. meeting - it's possible someone there could sell me a queen/brood, if need be. I'm not sure. 

Arnie/Cloverdale: I appreciate your comments - truly. Your perspective is one that I honestly hadn't considered. I have a ten year old boxer and the thought of anything hurting him can easily get to me. I respect the views of all beekeepers, those who treat or choose not to. I am not set in any belief just yet and readily admit that I do not know what I am doing when it comes to owning these bees. I have read many books and looked at beesource until my internet usage is gone (folks in the country understand not having unlimited internet like the fortunate people in the city.  ) but actually applying that 'knowledge' is another thing. It is amazing how confident you can become from reading - before you encounter an issue with your hive! I do lean toward TF, but am thankful for the help of any and all that would take the time give advice. I'm glad to hear your hive is doing better after the treat and re-queen, Arnie. 

sorry for such a long post - thank you, as always, for your replies.


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## tanksbees (Jun 16, 2014)

One month old hive? Take that USDA report to whomever sold you the bees and give them back to them. Sterilize all your equipment and start fresh with bees from somewhere else.

Someone sold you a sick nuc which was probably not right to begin with


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## Arnie (Jan 30, 2014)

Great point, tanksbees. 

Amanda, your hive does not look terribly sick. I notice in picture #4 there are some dead larva, but overall they appear to be recovering. There is a good chance they will get better. You can always re-queen in time for the new queen to have healthy more resistant bees going in to winter.


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