# Is this AFB?



## Harley Craig

Mites will make a hive with the symptoms you describe which looks very much like AFB but like you said no ropiness and also wont pass the holt milk test 

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/sick-bees-part-18a-colony-collaspse-revisited/


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## fritter87

I will do a sugar roll tomorrow and check my mite count. I should also mention about 2 weeks ago I noticed a few bees that would kind of hop/fly about 10 ft at a time on the ground and seemed like they had diarrhea. I attributed it to stress from a combination of prolonged rainy weather(about 2 or 3 weeks worth) and fighting the ants.


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## Joe Mac

Doesn't look like AFB to me. The capping would be sunken and greasy looking and you would smell a foul odor. The dead larvae would be ropy if you twirl a small twig, toothpick, broomstraw etc and apparently you have done that. If you ever smell AFB, you won't forget it. 

You could have a high mite load. Have you sampled for mites? Have you seen any adult bees with DWV? I couldn't tell from the video if you have any eggs or larvae. Is there any dead uncapped "snotty" looking larvae? For one thing it looks like they are about to starve. I see no capped honey and couldn't see any uncapped nectar. I live about an hour from you and have been feeding my smaller hives heavily. They had consumed all the honey they had. I'm hoping we're going to have a fall flow, but nothing so far.


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## fritter87

I haven't been keeping a close eye on my mites, but I'll be checking them tomorrow. Yes I think I do recall seeing one or two with DWV, but didn't notice any snotty larvae. I top fed both my hives for a while, but I think that's what brought the ants so I stopped. Guess it may be time to start back.


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## FlowerPlanter

This hive could be many things I can't get a good enough look in to the cells, It also looks like you have scatter drone brood? Laying worker on top of every thing else.
Could be EFB or PMS. But would not rule out AFB until you get lab results be cause of all the perforation. Some of the frames you pulled look like I could see the dead slumped open larva in a few cells. AFB scale is hard for bees to remove with a spotty pattern that bad it should be full of AFB scale. Also if you look at the frames with empty cells you can see the pattern from previous cycles was also very spotty. Empty cells stained brown from larva that was capped surrounded by yellow new wax cells; This also suggests the brood was taken out of the cells before they were capped.

What is in the cells that are perforated? Can you open a few and take pictures? If it snotty then it could be AFB.

I see you have 2 hives? Get the both at the same time? When? Did one hive do well and one not so? Was one not expanding during a flow?

Can you confirm there is dead slumped larva in open cells?

How's your brood pattern on the other hive? 

I would send a sample to the lab for testing it's free, this is also determine what you can do with you equipment;

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


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## fritter87

The perforated cells almost all have white pupae visible. I'll try to get better pictures tomorrow before the sugar roll, but they don't look snotty and the ones that I tested with a matchstick weren't stringy. 

My other hive that I have in 2 deeps is about a month older than this one. Both feral swarms from the beginning of April and May. Both have had setbacks what with me having to learn on my own, but there is a night and day difference between the 2. My good hive has a good brood pattern and a good bit of stores. This hive had always been a little behind and slower than my good one, but a couple weeks ago screeched to a halt.

There is larva in some of the open cells, but they look pretty normal to me.

I'll look into sending a sample for testing just to be safe.


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## Mike Gillmore

I agree with Joe Mac that it appears they could be starving. I saw no honey or nectar on any of the frames, as far as I could tell anyway. Not much pollen, if any. 

There are a lot of open brood cells. Are there any eggs or young larvae in the cells? Hard to tell in the vid.


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## snapper1d

You better get some syrup on those quick.It looks you might have a good mite load also.


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## niki.nicole

I'm going to piggy back on this a bit. What exactly does AFB smell like. Today, I found one of my hives absconded and I kept smelling cat piss (or some kind of animal pee). My hives are out in the country and we have a ton of deer, rabbits, and all other manner of small fuzzies invading our gardens and orchard. But when I was finished with the inspection, I noticed that the smell was the strongest on the items that I used for the sugar roll test--the measuring cup and container I shook them into. However, the MIA hive is the only one I didn't shake because there weren't enough bees left to fill even the cup. I have read about some keepers noticing that hives sometimes smell when they are under a mite attack and were going to try to do more research on it. 

The thing that sucked the most was that I bought this queen from Anarchy Apiaries but this hive had been weak from the the moment I installed the package (hence the new queen). 

Please let me know if this looks like AFB and if it is safe to use the frames/comb or if I should scour it.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?330505-Absconded-hive-safe-to-use-comb-or-do-I-need-to-scour-it


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## niki.nicole




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## Woodside

100% lack of calories. Just feed it. Alot. Use inverted jar or inhive feeder, not an open source. Make sure sugar water is a minimum of 1lb sugar to 1lb water ratio. Stop feeding it when you think the hive weights 20kgs


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