# Is one hive witb AFB a death senetence to entire apiary?



## challenger (May 27, 2009)

I've found & destroyed a hive with AFB in a yard that has 5 other hives. The hive was being robbed but it was only 2 days prior that I had checked this yard and things looked normal. I wasin the process of making 5 double nucs into double 10-frame deeps and had done all but this AFB hive. I needed more eequipment so I returned 2days later & found this hive being robbed. As I mentioned I burned the bees & frames and scorched the boxes.
I medicated the other 5 hives in hopes that there wasn't robbing going on prior to brood in the other hives that was old enough to not get AFB infection.
Just wondering if others have had hives with AFB yet still have hives in the same area survive?
Thanks


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## throrope (Dec 18, 2008)

How sure are you that it was AFB?

Fortunately, I haven't encountered your difficulty, but twice in separate years, different inspectors tagged one of my hives and grabbed a sample. Later I received letters giving a clean bill of health. I suspect if one infected hive is a death sentence to the yard, the inspectors would have tagged all my colonies.

I applaud your response, but suggest you also discard the boxes. I've read boxes harbor the infection and no amount of treatment can eliminate it.

PA Dept of Agriculture provides inspections upon request as part of my $10 apiarist licence. If NC does the same, that may provide support for the rest of the yard. Beyond that I suggest a regular watchful eye.

Good luck and keep us posted.


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## garlicbee (Jun 3, 2010)

Keep us posted


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Time will tell. You should have taken care of the diseased hive before it got robbed out. But you already know that. Best of luck.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

But to answer your question - no it isn't always. TN is really strict about AFB - they burn any infected hives, quarantine the rest and then reinspect in a few weeks. And we don't have much of it.

Anyway, a fellow in our club had a hive with AFB that had to be burned, but it didn't spread to the rest of his hives.

Good luck.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Hopefully you are treating with tylosin or tylan as much of the AFB is resistent to terrimyacin variants. I just burned a whole buch of equipment but chose not to treat. I don't want the meds to mask the disease until all my equipment is contaminated and I have to treat as a matter of course. I may be very wrong with that philosophy and if I was anything but a hobbyist, I couldn't afford it. So I am waiting and inspecting regularly. Dadant sells the test kits. I keep a couple on hand so I can check out my suspicions immediately. I have never heard that well scorched boxes were a problem? Anyone else think that?


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## challenger (May 27, 2009)

I had a hive last year that tested positive for AFB. It was in another yard and the other 3 hives in the same yard, so far, are not infected. Actually they are booming. I know AFB can still be present in these hives and may crop up in the future.
I spoke with the NC bee inspector for my area about the issues I was having last year and he came out within a couple of days and confirmed the hive had AFB. I had frozen the frames from this hive and he took one back to the lab to confirm by testing. He also looked through several hives at my home to see if I had spread it from the outyard that produced the AFB hive and my home hives. He didn't find anythin to worry about and my home hives , again so far, appear clean. I had been doing tons of manipulations between the three outyards that I keep modest numbers of hives at.
In NC we can have out equipment gassed for a very inexpensive price. When the inspector came by for a follow up visit he took back 10 frames and I think the cost was $6.00 including the deep box. He said I could scorch the boxes and they would be fine. I have a large propane torch and scorched any boxes, bottoms, tops & inner covers I had at the time. I made sure to get all the surfaces and made almost all of the wooden ware almost completely black. I am not worried about scorched equipment so long as I toast it thouroughly.
I told him I hated the idea of killing the bees and that I'd read some information about a way to try and save them by placing the bees in clean equipment with a single frame of clean drawn comb and removing the comb after 24 hours by which time the bees will have placed all the nectar they were carrying into. He said he would allow me to do this experiment one time but if I had any future AFB infected colonies to kill & burn (yet it would be OK to scorch the wooden ware). I took the bees and clean equipment to a yard several miles away and placed them into it. I went back the next day and removed the drawn frame that the nectar in it and replaced it with foundation and fed them about 5 gallons of syrup over a few weeks. They drew out all 10 frames and the queen was laying vary well. I didn't have much hope for this colony but I was curious about the prospect of saving the bees. I was amazed to find this hive thriving after the winter inside a single deep. It was full of brood and I placed a second deep of drawn comb on it. I went back to it about 2 months ago and treated for Varroa at the same time I put the second deep on it. I went back today and there were 16 of 20 frames with brood that all looked perfect. I put 2 medium supers on it. I know there is still a chance that the hive has live spores so I'll take care to not mix equipment but it looks like I should get well over 100 lbs off this hive that I would have normally killed. Even if it dies in the future it was worth saving so long as I know the dangers of spreading the spores and do not do things that will.
Regarding this most recent AFB hive-it came from my third yard. I know for certain that the robbing had gone on in the outyard that produced last years AFB hive for well over a week yet, so far, the nearby hives are performing wonderfully. Fingers crossed. That is why I have at least some hope, that by catching this recent AFB colony very early AND treating it with Lincomycin, that I these hives will have a good chance. Time will tell.
Last year was a horror show for my beekeeping and I was so disgusted that I came very close to just giving up. This year, after doing a lot of feeding, requeening etc. I have (had) built back up to 15 strong hives going into the flow. I lost one, as I mentioned, to AFB and I lost another to starvation which was my fault. I lost only one hive over the winter out of 16 which is a record low. This is prior to the AFB & starved colonies. Now I find this AFB hive after being so pumped about how well my bees bounced back and I get that same dreaded feeling of doom.
All I can do is wait and be careful as to how I manage my management. If it turns out that I have start seeing more hives with AFB I am going to call it quits. I do this to raise $ for a cancer foundation and it is costing me a large amount of personal funds. This I don't mind but I'm not going to try and overcome the worst illness in the beekeeping hobby if it does run rampant over my colonies. It is just one thing after another as it is with poor queens being sold, varroa mites taking out colonies etc. To try and stay ahead of a doomed apiary would only be possible by constantly medicating which isn't effective or practical.
Thanks
Howard


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## Nature Coast beek (Jun 10, 2012)

Here's a New Jersey State Apiarist performing an AFB remediation, step by step. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zUXU9NI2Hg


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

Thanks for this post. Please keep us informed.


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## challenger (May 27, 2009)

I can't view this video on my phone but I'll see it later-thanks.
It's interesting that I found the instructions on saving the bees from an AFB infected colony in Ross Conrad's book, "Natural Bee Keeping". He writes about his problems with AFB and how he would treat with TM yet he would continually get infected hives showing up. He then bit the bullet and early one Spring put everything in clean wood with plain foundation and the single "depositary" comb which he removed the next day. He states this cleared up the problem and is since AFB free.
It is a lot of cost however in NC I can get all the AFB frames of comb that contain anything but honey, sanitized very cheaply which could be a big boost.
I'll see what happens.
Thanks
Howard


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Re the video posted by Nature Coast Beek, I was rather surprised to see this method still being used. It is known as "shook swarming".

Early last century we had a major AFB problem in my country that reached crisis proportions, nobody really knows but it's thought that as many as 30% of hives could have been infected. There was no legislation around AFB at that time.

Shook swarming was commonly used to save a colony. However, while it worked most of the time, it didn't always work. The realisation set in that it didn't work often enough, that shook swarming was one of the things causing the on going high AFB infection rates to continue.

The government acted and made shook swarming illegal, and the burning of AFB infected hives compulsory. Within a few years we went from the country with one of the highest AFB infection rates in the world, to one of the lowest rates in the world.


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## Riskybizz (Mar 12, 2010)

Years ago we had an AFB outbreak in our commercial operation after we purchased some bees from an unreliable source. Virginia State inspectors red tagged the colonies but allowed us to shake the bees into new setups on foundation. For several years we continued to fight outbreaks of the disease. Had I known then what I know now we would never had done that. The re-occurrence of infection is high and the constant process of burning all infected equipment is expensive. In my opinion if you find an outbreak in your apiary burn everything and move on. Don't even consider scorching the boxes as it is not 100% effective. There was a study I recall that utilized the shook-swarm method of disease prevention that shook the colony into clean equipment with starter strips of wax foundation at the top of the frames. Once they were partly drawn out those frames were removed the comb destroyed and the starter strips replaced. This was then repeated once again until at last the bees were allowed to drawn out new foundation and utilize it. Feeding was permitted during this process. The results of this study were fairly good but I wouldn't do it if you paid me. The video of the N.J. inspector is irresponsible. I could be wrong (and please correct me if I am) Connecticut and New Jersey are well above the national average for AFB outbreaks in our country.


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## ForrestB (May 26, 2013)

Sorry to hear about this problem. I have three hives with (I am 99% sure) AFB right now - tonight I am sealing them up and tomorrow, depending on the milk test, I will burn them if they test positive. The three have all the classic symptoms - sunken caps on brood, some nibbled on, smell, tongue, black scale (finally saw it today), and ropey boogers. 

I have one more, that one looks great. I bought Terramycin today as a precaution but now I am wondering after reading a post above - would be be better to just leave that hive intreated and wait to see? If they have it and all I do is mask it and later I trap swarms as I plan to do, I don't want to be risking their health.... so perhaps I should just wait and see and not treat?

I totally understand about being tempted to give up. This is my second summer with bees, I was really excited but this has me down. After pulling a frame today to pull samples for the milk test and to look at closer - I can't get the smell/images out of my head. I keep smelling the stuff on my hands even though I washed them with bleach. I know the stuff doesn't affect humans but I have suddenly got the willies about the stuff - I keep feeling like I must have spores on me that I am spreading around the house and the property. I know, it's weird.

Good luck challenger, I hope the rest of your hives stay clean, and wish me luck too, with only one good hive left I am going to have a sad summer if I end it with NO colonies.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

ForrestB said:


> ropey boogers.


That is the most easy part to diagnose and very reliable.

Forrest often a hive will not get AFB, even right next to a badly infected one, so don't give up on the hive. But the infected ones sound bad, yes burn, no option.

In my country drugs to treat AFB are illegal in a situation like yours with the clean hive, we just have to quarantine the hive from other hives for 12 months & see what happens, after 12 months they are considered OK. But I suspect in the US some may advise to use terramycin, this would mean that if a few spores have got into the good hive, the terramycin would prevent it forming the vegetative stage, and so stop the infection spreading. So it can work. But the down side is after you stop using terramycin there could be some spores left (spores are not killed by terramycin), and the disease will flare up.

Whatever you do, all the best.


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## challenger (May 27, 2009)

I'm on my 6th year and this season is my best by 2-3 fold (not done extracting).
The AFB has not appeared again YET. I am always waiting to find it. I'm a pessimistic person-just being real, and I feel I've learned enough to know I can't think I am completely out of the woods. Last year I got 0 honey due to AFB but mostly due to poor varroa control. I treated too late the year before. After last years problems I decided to try and grow my bee numbers by splitting a lot. I had all but one hive with virgin queens and brood less periods. This caused me to forego treating last year and I over wintered several double nucs and about the same number of double deeps. The nucs did better and I lost only one due to starvation and another to AFB (not confirmed but fried anyway). I lost 3 double deeps but the reason for this is unknown. The one hive I didn't treat went from a booming hive that I thought would give me 100 lbs to a varroa infected lost cause. Brood was hammered and DWV bees were very abundant. The hives that had brood less times grew like mad and I did a single formic flash in the Spring so everything worked well this year. I AM going to treat as soon as I can after I take honey.
I am lucky we have a very cheap fumigation service at NC State. My inspector comes and transports everything.
I still think I would do a shook swarm IF I had a ton of bees in an AFB hive. I purchased Linkomix and used it one a few nucs that were in the yard with this years AFB nuc. If I were a big operation I don't think it would be possible to keep track of a lot of shake outs. I also feel scorching boxes works but it is a personal choice. I flamed the hell out of every empty box I had this Spring to the point that they are charred completely. I have a rather large flame thrower so it is very easy to do & my inspector says it's OK even though I'd rather get them based. Timing isn't always favorable for this.
I think throwing the bees into clean equipment, letting them puke out all traces of stomach contents into drawn comb, and then destroying this comb followed by a couple of rounds of antibiotics does the trick but, again, that's just me.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Look at it this way. If you found a swarm hanging in a tree, but was told it was known to come from a hive infested with AFB, would you take that nice new hive you just bought, and spent the whole weekend assembling, painting, etc, and put that swarm in it? Would you risk it? 

That's what shook swarming is. All you are saving is some bees KNOWN to have come from an AFB infested hive.

Yes, it's known to work, but yes, it's also known that it does not always work.

As an ex commercial beekeeper I've had to deal with AFB. My method, burn everything. Problem solved, cheaper in the long run, this has always worked well.


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## Gypsi (Mar 27, 2011)

I am grateful that I do not have AFB. But after dealing with EFB for the last 3 weeks, in the case of AFB I am an advocate of dig a pit, seal the bees in and kill with dry ice/co2, put everything in the pit, and torch it.


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## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

As I recall the NJ video called for some specific circumstances - a _very_ populous hive and a flow underway are the two that come to mind now. If you don't meet those two conditions (and there may be more) a shook swarm isn't going to have the desired results!


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

Oldtimer " My method, burn everything. Problem solved, cheaper in the long run, this has always worked well. "
Burn everything meaning the complete hive ( I agree) or all hives in the yard ( I would find this excessive)
All my hives are numbered. When I extract I return the frames to the hive they came from. I clean my hive tool between each hive. After each inspection I " burn" the hive tool in metho.
I record where every frame comes from when I do splits. I sterilise equipment ( eg SHB traps) after washing if they go into a different hive....
We can reduce the risk but we will never eliminate it totally.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Just the hive not the whole yard! 

Sounds like you take all the precautions Max, is there much AFB in Aussie?


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

Plenty of it along our coastal belt. Not sure about the rest of the country. 
Professionals apparently are using antibiotics which are not legal.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Oh wow that's a bad situation. 

We had an incident here when some immigrants decided to use drugs, as they were used to doing in their old country. But they got found out and educated / stood on by other beekeepers. Always a worry though.


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## challenger (May 27, 2009)

max2 said:


> Oldtimer " My method, burn everything. Problem solved, cheaper in the long run, this has always worked well. "
> Burn everything meaning the complete hive ( I agree) or all hives in the yard ( I would find this excessive)
> All my hives are numbered. When I extract I return the frames to the hive they came from. I clean my hive tool between each hive. After each inspection I " burn" the hive tool in metho.
> I record where every frame comes from when I do splits. I sterilise equipment ( eg SHB traps) after washing if they go into a different hive....
> We can reduce the risk but we will never eliminate it totally.


That sounds like way way way took much work. How can you take all these prophalictice measures and still get work done? Do you have AFB in your yards? If no then is there a lot of it locally?
With all the work required to get honey and/or keep bees healthy & alive while dealing with the "normal" pests/problems there is no way I'd keep bees if I had to*take the measured you describe. If AFB is that prevalent in your area then I'd say it is impossible to keep every little hive bit/piece sanitized.



Oldtimer said:


> Look at it this way. If you found a swarm hanging in a tree, but was told it was known to come from a hive infested with AFB, would you take that nice new hive you just bought, and spent the whole weekend assembling, painting, etc, and put that swarm in it? Would you risk it?
> 
> That's what shook swarming is. All you are saving is some bees KNOWN to have come from an AFB infested hive.
> 
> ...


You make a good point. It is a debatable topic with no joyful aspects.
I'll not go back & forth with the shake methods-it would never end. Like a lot of things-what works for some may not for others.
I would certainly say that using an antibiotic for anything other than a preventative measure for having AFB spread is dangerous and a waste of money.
Personally, even though my hives seem to be under control, I'd like to get every bit of equipment I'm not using this winter fumigated. Next year I'd like to have it all in one out yard and have that with its own set of beekeeping equipment stored in a tote. Smoker, suit you name it. Then I could come and go without worrying about cross contamination.
This has become a depressing thread I must say.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Using terramycin not only masks the symptoms so you can't tell if you still have a problem, it makes them more susceptible to the disease because it kills off the microbes that protect them. Most countries don't allow you to use antibiotics, because they mask the symptoms they just require burning.

http://ec.europa.eu/food/animal/liveanimals/bees/docs/EMA_conclusions.pdf

"The main brood diseases are American foul brood and European foul brood. The American foul brood is a disease requiring notification. No treatment options were available for the American foul brood and treatment with antibiotics is not allowed, as they do not kill the highly resistant spores. For American foul brood the destruction of infected colonies is compulsory. Also for the European Foul Brood there were no real treatment options. In some countries the use of antibiotics was permitted under certain circumstances, i.e. under veterinary supervision and applying long withdrawal periods. Therefore, usually the infected colonies were destroyed."

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0033188

"We have demonstrated by both in vitro and in vivo studies that the LAB microbiota in A. mellifera inhibit one important honeybee pathogen, the bacterial brood pathogen Paenibacillus larvae that is the cause of the brood disease American foulbrood (AFB)..."

"Thus, our results strongly suggest that LAB linked to the honeybee crop have important implications for honeybee pathology, particularly for bacterial brood diseases such as AFB and EFB. Honeybees are considered to have only about a third of the innate immune genes compared to other insects. In addition to social defences that accrue to social insects, individual honeybees may also benefit from their LAB symbionts, which are probably of great importance in pathogen defence, possibly further reducing dependency on the innate immune system.

"In order to secure honeybee pollination services, A. mellifera beekeepers replace harvested honey by feeding sugar solutions, occasionally mixed with antibiotics for prophylactic control of honeybee-specific bacterial diseases of bee brood such as AFB and microsporidia. It is known that LAB antibiotic susceptibility varies. In vitro culturing of the 13 Apis individual LAB members with two antibiotics used in apiculture (oxytetracycline and tylosin) demonstrated high sensitivity of all to Tylosin, the most recently employed antibiotic within apicultural practices in the USA. Nevertheless, strains L. kunkeei Fhon2 and Lactobacillus Fhon13, Hma11, Hma8 and Hon2 showed resistance to oxytetracycline that may reflect the extended use of this antibiotic in apiculture or their long-term exposure to environmental microbes from the surrounding environment that produce similar substances. The negative effects on honeybee health from damaging the honey crop microbiota by the use of these antibiotics need to be investigated further."--Symbionts as Major Modulators of Insect Health: Lactic Acid Bacteria and Honeybees, Alejandra Vásquez, Eva Forsgren, Ingemar Fries, Robert J. Paxton, Emilie Flaberg, Laszlo Szekely, Tobias C. Olofsson


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

One case of AFB does not doom the whole apiary. It does need to addressed properly. Which means burning ALL of the frames, brood combs and honey combs. Doing so in a pit allows one to bury everything after the fire is out and making any honey unobtainable by bees.


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## challenger (May 27, 2009)

NC also requires burning of frames, bees, comb etc. Unless one opts for fumigation. Frames can be sealed & frozen after the bees are croaked off. Boxes & other equipment must be sealed up until the equipment is delivered to NC State University. Frames containing honey are burned because they spores in honey cannot be penetrated reliably with the type of fumigation used (ethylene I believe).
My inspector allowed me to shake my first hive with AFB as a one time experiment. It is currently by itself in a field 8 miles from me and appears completely healthy after 13 months-still waiting to drive up & smell that distinctive odor but fingers crossed.
Honestly if I could somehow work out the logistics I'd be tempted next year to shake all my bees into some cheap boxes and get all my hive boxes, frames & whatever else fumigated and, once done, put them back into fumigated hives. This isn't possible for several reasons but , even with no current AFB symptoms, I'd feel better knowing my bee hives are not an epidemic waiting to happen.
When I had the one nucs this year that I felt was possible AFB positive I destroyed it but wanted to do something about the other 5 nucs in this yard. I researched antibiotics and saw that TM was shown to be ineffective due to resistance. That's why I ordered the Lincomycin. It was just a stab but no other hives have shown any issues YET???
It is an ominous feeling having had AFB. Sort of a doomsday for my beekeeping future waiting to drop the hammer.
I know, for myself, there is just no way I'll cook my hive tool every hive or sanitize the snout of my smoker for every hive, or my gloves and on. If it turns out to have spread again in my hives so be it. I was careful for a reasonable amount of time after seeing or suspecting it but I'm not going out every time thinking I have to get spore free before opening a hive. Just MOHO but there are too many places spores can hide & I can't think of all of them nor do I wish to.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

challenger said:


> That sounds like way way way took much work. How can you take all these prophalictice measures and still get work done?


Yes it's a lot of work although you have taken what Max said and put it in your quote of me, as if I said it. I don't do all that stuff, and would prefer you remove that from the quote as people will get the wrong idea about me, thanks. As to Max, sounds like he has his reasons.
My method is to burn infected hives. I've never known any other method as none is allowed here, but would imagine that feeding antibiotics plus whatever other procedures are involved with that would have to be at least as much work. Could be wrong though. Few of my hives are ever fed syrup so feeding drugs would be extra time / cost.



challenger said:


> Do you have AFB in your yards? If no then is there a lot of it locally?


 Been AFB free for around 2 years but found 2 cases in the last month.
A lot in the area? Just depends how you define that. There is one "rogue" beekeeper with weird theories about AFB, and therefore an ongoing AFB problem, who is a nuisance to other beekeepers, we have not been able to shut him down. I discovered that he put some bees within a short flight of one of my recent AFB cases but has now removed them. The other AFB case, likely down to the same guy, but I don't know. He is New Zealand's answer to Terrance Ingram but has a lot more hives.


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

"That sounds like way way way took much work. How can you take all these prophalictice measures and still get work done? Do you have AFB in your yards? If no then is there a lot of it locally?
With all the work required to get honey and/or keep bees healthy & alive while dealing with the "normal" pests/problems there is no way I'd keep bees if I had to*take the measured you describe. If AFB is that prevalent in your area then I'd say it is impossible to keep every little hive bit/piece sanitized.

I had AFB in my yard. A near neighbour had to destroy about 30 hives and I wish I could stop my bees playing with his bees and equipment
I find the processes I describe ( and indeed a few more things I do) simply part of a routine now.
Here in Queensland we don't have to feed our bees and we don't have Varroa so far and many of the jobs our friends in other parts of the world have to do we can avoid.
I absolutely agree that it is impossible to keep everything sanitized - my aim is simply to reduce the risk.

Challenger says " I'd like to get every bit of equipment I'm not using this winter fumigated. "
I'm not aware that there is a fumigant which would kill AFB?
Here only burning or Gamma Radiation will effectively deal with AFB.

When I discovered AFB in my yard some years back I too was very disapointed and considered my beekeeping future but there is life after AFB, indeed even with AFB altough I would not wish it on to anybody.


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

Michael Bush " Using terramycin not only masks the symptoms so you can't tell if you still have a problem, it makes them more susceptible to the disease because it kills off the microbes that protect them. Most countries don't allow you to use antibiotics, because they mask the symptoms they just require burning."
How long will it take before every beekeeper understnads this and acts accordingly?


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

Mark B "One case of AFB does not doom the whole apiary. It does need to addressed properly. Which means burning ALL of the frames, brood combs and honey combs. Doing so in a pit allows one to bury everything after the fire is out and making any honey unobtainable by bees. "
I have found that a hot fire will destroy all the honey and in my case there was no honey left to obtain by bees.I use the same pit to burn any suspect/old beegear.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Etholyn oxide fumigation under high pressure was somewhat a popular technique used to address AFB infections, a way to save the equipment. A friend of mine has a bunch of supers w/ ETO and AFB stenciled on some of his medium supers. Under pressure the ETO will kill spores. It is also carcinogenic for humans handling it. So, for the most part, the practice was abandoned. Leastwise the portable units in most of the Eastern US States.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

There is no radiation option where I am, but if there was I'd be happy to go with it. Less so ETO.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>How long will it take before every beekeeper understnads this and acts accordingly? 

Considering how long it has been known and what the current mindset of US beekeepers is, apparently a VERY long time...


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## Riskybizz (Mar 12, 2010)

State of Virginia used to fumigate (ETO) hundreds and hundreds of our frames and boxes 20 years ago. Not sure if they still offer that service now or not. It used to be free.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

Challenger, what precautions have you taken to sanitize your hive tool, smoker, veil and the like?
This is a good video on the subject, at about four minutes into it, (personally, I don't like the idea of prophylactic use of antibiotics for EFB or AFB)


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

This is a rather old video by Dr Keith Delaplane. I tried to find something a bit more recent by keith but it would not open for me. It would be interesting to see what his approach to AFB is now?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Lburou said:


> Challenger, what precautions have you taken to sanitize your hive tool, smoker, veil and the like?
> This is a good video on the subject, at about four minutes into it, (personally, I don't like the idea of prophylactic use of antibiotics for EFB or AFB)


Maybe your question was rhetorical? How does a hive of bees get infected from a veil? How does it get infected from a smoker or hive tool as far as that goes? My smoker and hive tool do not carry teaspoon sized clumps of honey from one hive to another and deposit them in the next hive. You must gave been being facetious.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

max2 said:


> It would be interesting to see what his approach to AFB is now?


I don't know why his approach would be any different now. Conditions haven't changed much.


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## challenger (May 27, 2009)

sqkcrk said:


> Maybe your question was rhetorical? How does a hive of bees get infected from a veil? How does it get infected from a smoker or hive tool as far as that goes? My smoker and hive tool do not carry teaspoon sized clumps of honey from one hive to another and deposit them in the next hive. You must gave been being facetious.


Well the precautions suggested by the previous poster, not your reply, is an example of the personality type that beekeeping attracts. Now this is just my opinion/impression AND I may have taken the questions about the precautions I take as suggestions rather than an inquiry as to my hygienic practices, or lack thereof.
I've found that many beekeepers like to "contribute" to threads by posting their approach and/or methods used to handle challenges in beekeeping using a tone of superiority if you will. I'm being hypersensitive here just to try and make my point.
I've posted in this thread that I am not willing to continue beekeeping if I have to sanitize all of my bee gear after going into every hive as some suggested. To me it just wouldn't be worth staying in beekeeping if this is what I had to do. While I was dealing with a real or suspected AFB hive I did try to burn my hive tool between inspecting boxes and I even wore rubber gloves a time or two and used a propane torch on my smoker. After taking these basic precautions I felt that was as far as I was going to go. Once I didn't see any AFB symptoms in any of my hives I went back to doing nothing.
The more I thought about it the idea behind "bubble boy beekeeping" became less logical. I know that if AFB is suspected in any of my hives I have to do my best to keep it contained before, hopefully, eliminating it. Beyond that it is a lost cause due to the fact that I am constantly moving hives, frames, tops, bottoms and on between hives and hive locations. If I've spread AFB to any other colonies by these practices then it is my fault and I'll deal with it.
I may have other, "experts" look down their nose at my management methods but that seems to be more of a problem for them than it is for me.
Soooo many beekeepers love to point out how their methods/practices are the one and only way to keep bees. These same folk love to state with seemingly great authority how the ways of others are so blatantly wrong.
I find it very interesting that the majority of these omnipotent beekeepers have been keeping bees for 5 & fewer years???
I am more than happy to abandon any of my practices and try another if I see or feel there is a chance that switching make things better and I do indeed learn by my mistakes and the mistakes of others.
This is a challenging effort to say the least and being unable to veer off a chosen path is a bad approach IMOHO.


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## Axtmann (Dec 29, 2002)

IMO if bees robbed the AFB colony they spread the disease. All hives in a range from approx 3-4 km are in danger. An outbreak can come anytime, if not this year, the next year or later. As soon as there are enough spores per cell there is an AFB outbreak. I would say, the whole bee yard has now a big problem. 

There are only two ways to solve the problem; fire or radiation. Antibiotics will hide the problem but it will come back very soon even worse.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

sqkcrk said:


> Maybe your question was rhetorical? How does a hive of bees get infected from a veil? How does it get infected from a smoker or hive tool as far as that goes?


Yes Mark, maybe it was. Its the spores that infect the next colony, as you well know 



challenger said:


> -snip- I've found that many beekeepers like to "contribute" to threads by posting their approach and/or methods used to handle challenges in beekeeping using a tone of superiority if you will. I'm being hypersensitive here just to try and make my point. -snip-I may have other, "experts" look down their nose at my management methods but that seems to be more of a problem for them than it is for me.


I apologize for sounding superior, but I assure you I did not intend to sound that way -I'm not a member of the beekeeping Taliban.  After reading this was your second bout with AFB, I was looking for a commonality between the two episodes....Tools popped into my mind as a possible source of infection. Working in a hospital for 20 years makes me think of infection control more than the average Joe. YOu have my sincere best wishes as you work through this problem. 

BTW, I don't wash my tools. Only thing I do is to quarantine new colonies from take outs or swarms until they show me their brood frames are normal appearing and smell the way they should. Our colonies are all vulnerable to foul brood, nobody is exempt.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Lburou said:


> Yes Mark, maybe it was. Its the spores that infect the next colony, as you well know


Yes Lburou, I am quite familiar w/ the manner in which spores infect a colony of bees, the number of spores necessary and the age of the larvae has to be to be susceptible to the infection. That is why I ask HOW a hive tool, or a veil, or a smoker can cause infection in another uninfected colony. It can't. I would ask Delaplane were he here. I know Apiary Inspectors who throw their hive tools on the ground and scuff them in the dirt w/ their shoes and then pick them up a scrape them w/ their pocket knife habitually. Yet they do not do the same w/ their pocket knife.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

Points well taken Mark 

The question then becomes: "Its 10PM, do you know where your bees have been?"


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

sqkcrk said:


> I don't know why his approach would be any different now. Conditions haven't changed much.


I understood that some of the antibiotics sugessted don't work as well anymore?
If this is correct Keith maybe moved on to a different treatment?


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## ForrestB (May 26, 2013)

Regarding the persistence of spores in wood, I found this paper from the Journal of Applied Microbiology:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2672.2001.01376.x/full


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

sqkcrk said:


> Yes Lburou, I am quite familiar w/ the manner in which spores infect a colony of bees, the number of spores necessary and the age of the larvae has to be to be susceptible to the infection. That is why I ask HOW a hive tool, or a veil, or a smoker can cause infection in another uninfected colony. It can't. I would ask Delaplane were he here. I know Apiary Inspectors who throw their hive tools on the ground and scuff them in the dirt w/ their shoes and then pick them up a scrape them w/ their pocket knife habitually. Yet they do not do the same w/ their pocket knife.


The way I read the literature tools, veils, gloves, smokers ....all can carry spores if they are contaminated with honey or wax.
Agreed - the chances are low. We all make decisions to what level we want to take the hygiene.
One thing which does worry me and which I see suggested in this forum often is the practice of letting "the girls" ( an dinteresting term for bees!) clean up cappings, extractors etc. It is a practice I would never alow in my beeyard as this is surely one of the best ways to spread AFB ( and a few other disease) rather efficiently if it is prevelant in the area.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Thanks for the link ForrestB, I've saved it, some useful info.


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## ForrestB (May 26, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> Thanks for the link ForrestB, I've saved it, some useful info.


My pleasure. Not really the kind of info I was looking forward to exchanging when I took up this hobby though, lol.


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

Oldtimer said:


> Thanks for the link ForrestB, I've saved it, some useful info.


Yes, thanksForrestB - In my case burning the lot still seems to be only practical means to break the cycle as the cost of treatment of the wood seems expensive and time consuming and in all cases involves some risk to health and wellbeing.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

max2 said:


> I understood that some of the antibiotics sugessted don't work as well anymore?
> If this is correct Keith maybe moved on to a different treatment?


Prophylactic treatment recommendations are still the same. That hasn't changed.


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## challenger (May 27, 2009)

Axtmann said:


> IMO if bees robbed the AFB colony they spread the disease. All hives in a range from approx 3-4 km are in danger. An outbreak can come anytime, if not this year, the next year or later. As soon as there are enough spores per cell there is an AFB outbreak. I would say, the whole bee yard has now a big problem.
> 
> There are only two ways to solve the problem; fire or radiation. Antibiotics will hide the problem but it will come back very soon even worse.


IMO this is opinion is based on a knee jerk mentality.
It makes the point for saving boxes at minimum, "As soon as there are enough spores per cell there is an AFB outbreak."
So the spores in the cells are the issue? Why burn woodenware - rhetorical question.
3-4km to me says that a hive with AFB will contaminate another apiary. This one will contaminate another and so on. Using your scenario all apiaries would be wiped out unless they are miles apart.
Lastly who actually does a complete sanitization between each hive inspection? Simply put there is always a risk/reward for all situations that may have detrimental results. The amount of effort one puts into preventing AFB while there is no AFB outbreak present (there are AFB spores in all hives) = risk. An apiary that has a clean AFB history = reward.
Personally I would love to be able to start a new out yard with bees in new equipment and keep it isolated and have dedicated inspection tools etc. I know this would never be practical for me. I would slip up somewhere and put other yards in peril.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

challenger said:


> (there are AFB spores in all hives).


A common misconception. 

There does not HAVE to be. The belief I have come to, is a hive with a load of AFB spores, but not "enough per cell" to become symptomatic, will gradually purge itself of those spores, via ejection of rubbish, ingesting and pooping them, feeding them to larvae in non lethal doses, etc.

That this can happen is the only way a hive could be "cured" by antibiotics. The hive is symptomatic, so must have a high enough number of spores to become so. It is then fed antibiotics which gets rid of vegetative AFB, but by the end of treatment, if the hive does not get AFB again, it must be somehow purging the spores to lower levels so as not to become symptomatic.

There are areas in my country where AFB has not been seen for years and migratory beekeeping is not practised. Samples from those hives can be tested and no AFB spores found. Course that doesn't mean there is not an undetected one in the hive somewhere, but likewise there is no proof there has to be, it is quite conceivable there could be hives with no spores.


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