# Rebuilding Colonies after Sub Lethal Pesticide Kills



## Bradley_Bee (May 21, 2008)

I'll be a suck egged mule. 75 views. no replies.


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## pahvantpiper (Apr 25, 2006)

Sue the applicators and buy new hives??? This really sucks, I've been there and there's no worse feeling.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Bradley_Bee said:


> I'll be a suck egged mule. 75 views. no replies.


Some background information would probably stimulate some discussion. If what we are seeing is pesticide poisoning I'd say It was a bit more than "sub-lethal.


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

We suffer quite some poisonings over here. This is what I do to save colonies. 

1) Remove all combs with pollen and burn them. 
2) Feed the hives with syrup and pollen patties. 
3) Provide fresh water that is pesticide free. Water is crucial. Provide it.
4) Requeen weak colonies. Often the queen is affected, too. (1 out of 10 queens failsafter being poisoned.)

I also feed stinging nettle tea. Just a handful of fresh nettles plus boiling water. Let cool, add sugar and feed. See: http://www.usab-tm.ro/fileadmin/fzb...HEMISTRY,BIOPHYSICS,MATHEMATICS/Marghitas.pdf

The nettle tea worked very well in my apiaries. 

Sometimes the wax is containing too much of the pesticides. In this case you have to a shake down on fresh comb. Best is drawn comb, but foundation will do, too.


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## GageFamilyBeekeeping (Mar 10, 2011)

I had the same thing happen on Watermellons. The farmer applied Sniper through a drip system so no only did the bees get exposed through the nectar but also when drinking water. 

I am currently feeding and providing pollen, heavily, and hoping to get these hives back to winter strength. I did lose 20% so far.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

GageFamilyBeekeeping said:


> I had the same thing happen on Watermellons. The farmer applied Sniper through a drip system so no only did the bees get exposed through the nectar but also when drinking water.
> 
> I am currently feeding and providing pollen, heavily, and hoping to get these hives back to winter strength. I did lose 20% so far.


It appears to me a drip application is not a per label application. 
http://www.cdms.net/ldat/ld7LQ001.pdf
What is a farmer thinking that needs bee pollination yet allows bees to have such exposure.


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## borada bee doc (Feb 6, 2010)

Jim really is right, to contribute useful feedback, more information is needed. Certainly pesticides are the first thought but other considerations include:

"in hive treatments" -Remember when Hivestan applied in hot weather resulted in bee die off?

mite load- PMS can cause depopulation

recent weather conditions- paralysis virus outbreaks often follow a period of confinement in the hive due to poor weather (this happens in cold weather but I'm not sure what the effect of hot weather would be.)

recent feeding; old dark HFCS causing HMF poisoning or light sucrose syrup causing robbing (just a thought for completeness).

what are the dead bees? Are they drones evicted in a dearth, are they old appearing foragers, or are they fuzzy house bees?

what is the behavior of dying bees?

What is the behavior of bees at the entrance, what is the behavior in the hive?

Are you seeing this in any other locations or just in this field?

What crop are they sitting on? What other fields are nearby? Where were they last?

I had an episode of piles of dead bees in front of the hives a few years back. What had been the occasional hive with a pile of stinking dead bees and daily addition of dying bees in previous years became an epidemic with 25% of the hives affected. Many of these perished but the following year I saw the same pattern except only 25% were unaffected. This began in populous hives coming out of the almonds and persisted in all of the bee yards in different areas of the county. It seemed to spread from hive to hive in a yard, often taking whole pallets down. Interestingly, it would sometimes clear by moving colonies to a new location but could also resume later in the year in a new location. Evaluation of specimens in the bee lab showed no mites, nosema, or tracheal mites. We used the unaffected colonies for breeders that year and have only seen sporadic cases since. I attributed this to a paralysis virus but still question the possibility of poisoning. 

Outwardly, your colonies look like a poisoning has happened but it would be good to keep an open mind to other possibilities.

Andrew


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## Bradley_Bee (May 21, 2008)

This is not a discussion on whether or not these bees were killed by pesticides. They were hands down. Theres no dying bees, they are dead. The high cycle tracks go right by the bees. They are next to a cotton field. That discussion is saved for the EPA and the NPDF. 
Bernhardheueval - thanks for your reply. I was thinking about pollen sub feeding and sugar water to see if I can kick start them back with enough brood. I don't know about the tea out here ..


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## borada bee doc (Feb 6, 2010)

Bradley_Bee, this discussion is intended to benefit a wide audience so broadening the scope of the die-off is appropriate. Every time there is a die-off, our first thought is poisoning. I do the same. For the benefit of our readers and our industry, I have mentioned other possible factors.

I would suggest you talk with one of your local experts like Eric Mussen at UC Davis. He has lots of insight to what is going on in your area and may have suggestions for rescuing your bees. The first thing is to go back to the basics. Limit stress on the hives. They look like they have too much room there. If you can get them down to 1 or 2 boxes (80% rule) they will do better. Adding subs is needed but you should be using essential oils to stimulate consumption of the patty as they are likely pretty sick. A drench with Honey-Bee-Healthy also has this effect and the dosing is on the bottle. A light syrup, also with essential oils, should stimulate brooding. A new class of pesticide is now in use called a no-feed class pesticide. If you are facing this, you have problems because the bees have hormonally had their appetite shut off. The behavior of these bees will likely be different than other types of poisonings. You may not be able to turn this one around but getting protein into them is the key so think feeding stimulant. Diseases will also be a concern in these stressed hives. Also, you've probably got hives with contaminated pollen so you might consider removing the frames containing the largest pollen stores. Good luck.


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## Makin' Honey (Sep 13, 2010)

I have a few questioins.....

How many frames of brood are in your hives?
Is there enough bees to care for the brood?
Are your queens laying eggs?
What does your brood look like? Is it healthy looking or sorry?
Is there fresh pollen coming in or is the young brood being fed the pollen in the hive?


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## LSPender (Nov 16, 2004)

Solution to pollution is dilution !
What I have found is to overwhelm what you have left with good stuff, ie pollen sub, syrup& essential oils and with the good ones left make new hives. 

What your dealing with is the new normal of our industry, pesticides coming from every angle & 
We are just learning what the results are from sub lethal pesticide kills.

Watermelons are real tough on hives, we have lost about 20% so far, they just go queenless.


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## Bradley_Bee (May 21, 2008)

Makin' Honey said:


> I have a few questioins.....
> 
> How many frames of brood are in your hives?
> Is there enough bees to care for the brood?
> ...


The brood ranges and because I discovered this pulling honey, i haven't had the time to stop what I was doing and diagnose each one. I made sure they were all laying and made plans to come back. Depending on the size of the hives. I would say anywhere from 5 to 16 frames of brood or more. I would have to get back to you on this. Some of it is healthy, some of it is spotty . There is fresh pollen but not much.


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## RAK (May 2, 2010)

You better get feeding... Doesnt the county notify you when they gonna spray?

I would get the hives out of that area and feed pollen sub and syrup. If you have 5-6 frames of bees and you feed ...your hives will be golden for the almonds. I have built 3 frames duds from august - jan and had 6 frame av almonds.


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

RAK said:


> ...get the hives out of that area.


I second that. They rarely recover if kept in the area they were poisoned. 

As a precaution I trap pollen when there is the slightest chance that there could be a pesticide exposure. For example when the corn flowers. Bees do not have much of an alternative and collect the pollen. The pollen trap helps to keep out contaminated pollen. I feed pollen collected throughout the year during that time. Wintering results got significantly better since. 

If you breeding queens: we noticed three to four years unsuccessful matings after the big poisoning of 2008. (12,000+ colonies poisoned, state laboratory tested.) Not a single queen mated in 2009, getting gradually better until today. Before that event it was much easier to make your own queens. We suppose the drones produced by poisoned queens are unfertile. So if you plan to breed from those hives to recover, requeen with queens coming from another apiary or breeder.


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

Just a hint: the Italian beekeepers had poisonings and never found a trace of pesticides in their bee samples send to the laboratories. Same situation in Germany. We found out, that you have to send in not dead bees but poisoned but still alive bees. Collect bees that show signs of poisoning and are still alive. They usually crawl on the ground, shivering and such. Put those bees in a plastic bag, roll into aloy foil and put them into a freezer. Send the sample frozen. This way you find the pesticides in the laboratory testings.

It seems that the stuff breaks down rapidly when the bees are dead and start rotting. 

Trapping pollen has another advantage. You have pollen samples throughout the year. Because sublethal poisonings can cause effects half a year or a year later, you can trace back the sublethal poisoning. I had a case with canola this year. Two independant laboratories found the active ingredient in the samples I collected. I store the pollen samples in a freezer.


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## Bradley_Bee (May 21, 2008)

RAK said:


> You better get feeding... Doesnt the county notify you when they gonna spray?
> 
> I would get the hives out of that area and feed pollen sub and syrup. If you have 5-6 frames of bees and you feed ...your hives will be golden for the almonds. I have built 3 frames duds from august - jan and had 6 frame av almonds.



RAK - The county does not. The Applicant is supposed to. The local crop dusting business is really good about it. They will notify me that they are spraying at night , ( even though a lot of the chems they are spraying lately are residual poisons ) . They have to spray at night if bees are located within a mile radius. However, the kills ive been getting have been done by ground rig and they never contact me and spray during the day on blooming cotton / alfalfa . There horrible about it and just don't care.


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## Makin' Honey (Sep 13, 2010)

Bradley_Bee said:


> The brood ranges and because I discovered this pulling honey, i haven't had the time to stop what I was doing and diagnose each one. I made sure they were all laying and made plans to come back. Depending on the size of the hives. I would say anywhere from 5 to 16 frames of brood or more. I would have to get back to you on this. Some of it is healthy, some of it is spotty . There is fresh pollen but not much.


As you know the brood is the engine for building a strong hive. My experience sometimes has been a quick knock down of the bees with the pesticide and not much ‘bad’ pollen made it into the stored pollen. I do the visual check of the open brood. If the open brood looks good, plump and juicy…. and we know the bees are feeding them the stored pollen….. and visually no adverse reaction, at least not acute….. and the queens are laying eggs…..I move forward without any drastic action in the hives, like removing the frames of pollen, etc. I then act as if it were spring and would equalize, maybe make some nucs if queens are available, and feed , feed, feed. As a previous post said feed pollen substitute to dilute any pesticide that might have made it into the hive. I would also use HBH as a stimulant in the feed. It sounds like the brood in your hives is okay to good. I hate it for you, the loss of bees and all the work and expense to rebuild....so I guess it is spring agian for you to rebuild.


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## LSPender (Nov 16, 2004)

Just a note spray notifications.
One of the main sprayers are mosquito districts , they spray all the time no notice, also in past few years a lot if them have switched from malithion to neonics because neonics do not smell, so no one knows


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

Bradley_Bee said:


> They are next to a cotton field. I was thinking about pollen sub feeding .


There you go..... bees on cotton often fail about two months afterward, there is little to no pollen in cotton, let alone the sprays, I sell alot of sub to folks down in the cotton. Best of luck.


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