# Mysterious Dead Hive: I'd love for an experienced bee-keeper to look at these photos



## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

I just went and checked my 3 hives for the first time since last fall and 2 of the hives are in really good condition but the 3rd hive was completely dead. I felt like a friend died. I have no idea what went wrong in the hive. I'd love for someone to take a look at these photos and offer suggestions on what might have gone wrong so I can avoid this happening in the future. I'm also curious where to go from here with this hive. 

Some notes on the hive and situation:

We are in the high deserts of Oregon. There is very little rain or snow but it gets very cold here (10-20 below freezing), but I've had 4 hives successfully make it through the winters now without any issues. I have absolutely no mites and no diseases that I've observed. These hives are basically quarantined in the middle of 2000 acres of alfalfa with zero other honey-bees within 5 miles that I am aware of.

I'm only a 3rd year bee-keeper so I don't know much about what might have happened and this is the first time I've had a colony die, but it's as if all of the bees were going about their business one day and just died suddenly. There are thousands of dead bees at the bottom of the hive and weren't removed by the undertaker bees. A few frames were like a bee still-life with some bees frozen in place as if they are going about their normal every-day lives, cleaning out the cells and walking around the frames. And I'm positive they didn't starve because there is an absolute ton of capped honey still in this hive. I'm guessing that they died months ago because of all the left-over honey. 

The only thing I can think of is that the queen was possibly killed late in the fall last year because I had a little bit of robbing of a couple of the hives because I got careless when I gave them back some wet honey supers to clean up. Maybe the queen was killed during the robbing of this hive and they didn't have time to replace her? But if the queen was dead and they didn't re-queen, wouldn't they have at least cleaned out the dead bees? And wouldn't there still be some live bees left over? Or do they not clean out dead bees in that situation and the remaining bees froze in the frames due to a lack of a bee mass during the coldest nights? When I put on my Sherlock Holmes bee inspector hat, that's the best guess I can come up with. But I'd love for someone who actually knows something about bees to give their 2 cents. 

The evidence (taken with a cell phone so pardon the picture quality):


Thousands of dead bees on the bottom of the hive: 





















Plenty of honey left over: 






















Bees going about their business, appear to have died suddenly...










Messy... and a few capped brood that never hatched. And there was a bit of mold in places, but certainly not enough to take over the hive or cause issues. I'm guessing it came around after the hive was wiped out, but who knows.











The hive consisted of 2 deeps. Because I didn't have a hive tool on me I only broke into the top deep but I imagine that this bottom deep was just more of the same.












My questions are as follows:

1. Why oh why did they all perish mysteriously?

2. Is the capped honey still good? And if so should I just cut the caps off and let the other 2 healthy colonies clean it out? Or am I risking contaminating them with "bad honey"? 

3. Are the boxes still ok? Or is some mysterious bee disease lurking in the wood that would get any future colony sick if I try and use this wood? Should I just throw the entire thing on the burn pile and move on? 

Thank you for reading this and I look forward to your opinions!


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## Beeslave (Feb 6, 2009)

5th picture down....the frame on the right ....do I see AFB scale?


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## honeyshack (Jan 6, 2008)

1. not enough bees to cluster
2. not enough food close to the cluster...that frame of foundation should have been replaced with a frame of feed...starvation
3. no pollen stores
4. not a great brood pattern, obviously a queen since they look like worker brood.
5. even though you said no mites, given the fact that this is the third winter, given that you have not provided mite counts, I suspect mites....unless you provide mite counts from last the last year.


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## honeyshack (Jan 6, 2008)

Answers to your Q
1. answered above
2. is the honey good...feed it to your other bees or if you make a split. If you place a split in this box, since there is not enough feed, you will need to feed inorder they produce numbers
3. boxes and frames look ok, however you have alot more drone brood than necessary. Sinc you use wax foundation, it will be hard to scrape off. Replacing the foundation would be a good idea.


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

Thanks for the responses so far!

Gosh I sure hope that isn't AFB. If it is, I don't know how it got there. These are 3 year old bees and are in contact with exactly ZERO other bees so I don't think that normal bee diseases and issues can "infect" them. But I could be wrong?

Perhaps it was a weak hive and there just weren't enough bees to cluster. But there are a significant number of dead bees on the bottom of the hive. Would thousands die? They are Russian bees so they shouldn't need a huge cluster to make it through the winter. 

Next year I'll make sure that they have a lot of honey near the center of the hive. I would have thought that the cluster would just move around and get honey as they need it. Honestly I don't think that it's starvation. There is a ton of honey left in this hive, and I am guessing that they died months ago. 

There was some pollen in some of the frames, but not very much. 

Crap, I think you might have busted my "the queen died in a robbing event" theory because indeed there is worker capped brood. However I didn't see any non-capped brood. Wouldn't there be uncapped brood if there was still a queen? And much of the brood comb was empty, but maybe that was just due to the queen stopping laying since the hive was headed into winter. The brood pattern was very spotty. I suppose I should break into the other deep and see what that looks like. I did see an empty queen cell on one of the frames but it might have been old because this colony swarmed last spring.

Mites: I honestly think I literally have zero mites in any of my 3 colonies. I have mite count boards and in all my inspections I have never seen a mite. These are all typically very happy active bees with no visible ailments. 


So you think that the honey is safe to give to the other bees? I would love if it was because that would certainly boost their production this summer. 

And you wouldn't be afraid to put new bees in these boxes? Even if there was AFB or some other horrifying bee disease? These bees hate anything but wax foundation so I'll likely just get new frames and foundation for them either way. But if I could keep the bottom board, inner cover, outer cover and deeps that would be great. I just don't want to infect new bees with some nasty disease.


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## Scrapfe (Jul 25, 2008)

oregonbeek said:


> ... Gosh I sure hope that isn't AFB. ...bees and are in contact with exactly ZERO other bees...


There are some pierced cappings in the fifth frame but I see no callapsed cell caps, I dont think it is AFB. More likely your queen died or they starved or did not have enough polen for build up, leading to a deduced cluster......
For a good view of AFB go here
http://www.google.com/search?source...or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=e08627092e669c6d


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## winevines (Apr 7, 2007)

Some of the brood appears to have pin hole pricks. That can be from PMS- condition of mite related viruses- bees too weak to get out of cell. If you can pull any out, see if there are any stunted abdomens. I have never seen that myself, but it is another sign of PMS. I did have this pin hole brood after winter and Beltsville bee lab analysis showed high mite counts to confirm what other experienced beeks had told me.


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## Ravenseye (Apr 2, 2006)

I don't think AFB but it's hard to tell with pics. I'd say a small, weak colony that clustered over a patch of brood and died out.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

You are only showing half a hive but my guess is not starvation. There would be hundreds of bees with their heads buried in the cells. My guess is the queen gave out in the fall when they couldn't replace her. You did say three years right? The brood hatches gets old and dies out. No new bees to clean out the bottom so they just build up. AFB? Brand new equipment, I doubt it.


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## Trevor Mansell (Jan 16, 2005)

It looks like the queen gave out and you might of had a mite issue looking at all the larva on the bottom board.


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

Thank you so much! I appreciate every comment and suggestion. So I'm thinking it's likely either a poor cluster issue or queen issue, with a possibility of a mite related issue. I'll go out and check really well for mites but I'm almost 99% sure these hives don't have mites. I actually don't think that is larva on that bottom board but is just wax chunks. It's a very poor photo so it's hard to tell. Once i'm back out there I'll tear into the bottom box and see what's going on there.

1. So is the general consensus that the honey is fine to feed to the other bees?

2. And if you wanted to sterilize the bottom board, boxes and covers would you wipe it with bleach? Or instead would you scorch it with fire? Or just not risk it and buy new equipment.


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## geebob (Apr 4, 2011)

oregonbeek said:


> I'll go out and check really well for mites but I'm almost 99% sure these hives don't have mites.


I'm almost 99% sure you DO have mites. What you will do about them is another matter entirely.

As for your questions, 1. I see no reason not to use the honey, and 2. I would use a flame to sterilize, but that is strictly a personal choice.


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## cowdoc (May 15, 2011)

Pull your head out of the sand on the mites. This is almost surely mite loss. Does it smell? AFB will have a distinct odor. Generally, the combs look too good for AFB. I would clean out the junk and put bees back on the equipment without worry. If you are really worried, flame it. Bleach is inactivated by organic matter and will do nothing to disinfect wood.

Chris
Greenwich, NY


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## NasalSponge (Jul 22, 2008)

Ditto on the AFB, I have opened one hive with it and there is no mistaking that smell, nothing like what a regular hive smells like.


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## Cedar Hill (Jan 27, 2009)

As someone mentioned already, too small a cluster to make it through your winter. Couldn't gravitate to the honey during the cold. After all, you did write "There is very little rain or snow but it gets very cold here (10-20 below freezing)" If they did in fact have a touch of AFB or a virus that would have weakened them enough to not last the winter. In retrospect, you need much more honey on your hive if you have winters that severe. Did you feed in time to create a real nice cluster of "winter bees" or were they "old summer bees" going into the winter? OMTCW


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## Mtn. Bee (Nov 10, 2009)

X2 with Cedar Hill! But I would also throw the mite theory weakened them first!


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Don't rule out Nosema a, or Nosema c. They are hard to spot after the fact.

Crazy Roland


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

My take, queen was fine.

Leaves AFB, Mites, Nosema, and starvation as the main culprits. Pics have some similarity with AFB but my gut feeling is not. Where I am hives never starve with honey in the hive but I have no experience with winters 20 degrees below, which would stop the cluster moving. Mites, yes, I think so. You could look through the dead bees to see if there are any with deformed wings.

My experience with beeks who feel they don't have mites because their bees look fine, are far from other bees, etc, are the ones who lose hives to mites.

In any case, long as the hive did not have AFB it's fine to use again. I think you should look at some pics to see how to do the ropiness test, plus ID AFB scale. Probably not AFB but pays to be sure. After that, just go ahead and restock the hive.


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

Thanks so much for the input! I appreciate every one!


And update:

Ok, I went out to the hives today to put honey supers on the remaining two hives and put the first supers on the 3rd hive that is going absolute gangbusters right now. They were bringing in pollen like crazy and were doing really well. (This is my 3rd hive that swarmed off of my other 2 hives this past spring and is housed in all new equipment). I put the honey supers on that hive and then headed to my other remaining hive and noticed that they weren't bringing in pollen like the other hive. I tore into that hive and found about 200 bees milling around... they didn't seem to care at all that I was in their hive, and this used to be the "angry" hive that was more aggressive than the others. My initial impression was "Oh crap, this hive is dead too and the strong hive is just robbing this one, which explains why there are bees in it". So I started dismantling the hive to take it home and get it cleaned up. This hive also had probably 5 full frames of good capped honey left over in it, so I cut into them and set them outside the strong hive to give them, thinking it would give them a little boost. And then as I was going through the last of the brood frames trying to figure out what went wrong I noticed the queen!!! I COULD NOT believe it at first, but sure enough, she was being tailed and waited on by 10-20 little helper bees. But why would there just be a queen, 20 helpers, and about 200 other random bees milling about aimlessly? How would they make it through the night with so few bees? There were no brood and no dead bees in this hive. I just slapped the cover back on the hive and will figure out what to do with that disaster of a hive later. That hive is even more of a mystery than the first one.

So then I went back to the first hive that mysteriously got wiped out and tore back into it to do a more thorough examination and right when I took the lid off I thought the hive smelled a little funny... almost musty? I thought, "oh crap, you guys said that AFB smelled odd", but also wondered if it was just because I had a hive with 10,000 dead bees on the bottom board setting there all winter rotting away. I did take my hive tool and scrape at some of the capped brood and it looked a bit mushy inside... I'm not sure if that is normal or not for bee larva that likely died months ago. I took a photo of the largest patch of brood that I could find for you guys to look at: 










I honestly really don't think that I have a mite problem. I looked through handfuls of the dead bees and didn't see any mites on their backs or any deformed wings. I also have a country rubes screened bottom board and have never once seen a mite on it. I know what mites look like and have yet to see one in any examination. 

So the status of my 3 hives are:

1 extremely strong hive that has supers on it and is ready to go for the summer
1 hive that looks like every bee in the hive died in an instant like a bee-killing EMP pulse went off by the hive... it's almost creepy to look at
1 hive that has a queen and about 200 other bees, and no brood, but an absolute ton of capped honey


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## mrqb (Jul 17, 2011)

not good,time for burn barrel


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

With the better pic it doesn't look like AFB.

Not saying you have mites. However, last stage of a hive dieing from mites, often you can find a queen running around and a fistful of bees in the hive also. There will be dead brood, as varroa is primarily a brood disease. So if your nearly dead hive has no dead brood, the cause may lie elsewhere. Such a hive is easy to salvage. Just swap it with the strong hive, the returning feild bees will give it a boost & get it going again, a week or so after that you could put a comb of hatching brood in it. But all that is pointless if you don't solve the root problem. Might I suggest you send a sample of bees to the lab for testing. Once you have a diagnosis you can make the nessecary remedy.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Well I just had this emailed to me by another member, he is a commercial beekeeper with a lot more experience with _Nosema C_ than I do so I've taken the liberty to put his reply here, he's too polite to dissagree publicly but he knows what he's talking about so here's what he said.



> In your reply, you have not taken into consideration the combination of Nosema c,
> and cold. The bees eat more, due to the parasite in their stomach. They starve, not
> because they don't have food, but because they do not get enough from what they do
> eat. We also see the same in pupae. They fail to hatch due to malnutrition before
> ...


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## honeyshack (Jan 6, 2008)

Deny the realities of mites all you want. But until you put a sticky board in your hive for 2 days and then count, or do an alcohol wash, the blinders will remain. Here is the deal with mites. If you see one, it is basically to late...kind of like rats.
Mites can and will take down a hive in one season, BUT they can take up to three years to destroy a hive. Slowly it dwindles, slowly the honey production and the bee produciton drop. Life goes on until the mites outpace the queen
Nosema being a stressor disease probably finished off the hives.
Please take the time to test your hives, do not bother combing through the dead. The mites either moved to greener pastures when robbing occured cause they saw the writing on the hive wall, or the ants cleaned them up.

do you have a scratching fork? If you do, the next time you go into the brood box, stab the capped drone brood and pull them out. Go at them from the side and take a chunk of them out. Watch the cells for a sec and see what moves out, and quickly check the back (undersides) of the drones. They will be white or greyish and the red mites will stick out like sore thumbs...be quick though...them buggers move fast!

I agree with the nosema as well...primary infection mites, then virus with a healthy dose of secondary infection of nosema

They did starve...the honey was not close enough to the brood cluster and with the bees being weak, not able to move and get more....classic mite signs...you have more signs of mites than one can shake a stick


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

mrqb said:


> not good,time for burn barrel




So AFB... 

If so, that is incredibly depressing.

If that's the case I'm 99% sure that only remaining strong hive is infected. If so, how long until that hive dies out? That's like finding out your friend is terminally ill.


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

honeyshack said:


> I agree with the nosema as well...primary infection mites, then virus with a healthy dose of secondary infection of nosema
> 
> They did starve...the honey was not close enough to the brood cluster and with the bees being weak, not able to move and get more....classic mite signs...you have more signs of mites than one can shake a stick



Alright, I definitely concede that I don't know as much about bees as you do so I'll look into the possibility of mites more. With mites at least I can come up with a management system and it's an enemy that everyone deals with, however if it's AFB, which I'm not ruling out after looking at more AFB photos and info online, then I feel pretty defeated about the whole situation and will likely burn everything (once that last hive gives up the ghost) and move on to another field with new equipment and bees.


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> Well I just had this emailed to me by another member, he is a commercial beekeeper with a lot more experience with _Nosema C_ than I do so I've taken the liberty to put his reply here, he's too polite to dissagree publicly but he knows what he's talking about so here's what he said.


Thank you for doing that. Also after looking into nosema symptoms more it says that a sign of nosema is bee diarrhea on the outside of the hive, which that hive had a fair amount of after looking at it again today.

Man, now I feel like I've got a whole variety of issues going on. 

Are these things that weaken hives over the span of 1 summer? Or multiple years? Or why would my new hive, which is just a swarm off of the 2 failed hives, be so much healthier? It's doing amazing at the moment. At the end of this harvest I'll be tempted to shake the hive and take all the honey (if the honey is fit for human consumption I suppose) and just let that hive die off instead of letting it slowly fail through the winter.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

oregonbeek said:


> Are these things that weaken hives over the span of 1 summer? Or multiple years?


Both, they can work away at a hive over years or can turn a seemingly healthy looking hive into a dead one in a few months.



oregonbeek said:


> why would my new hive, which is just a swarm off of the 2 failed hives, be so much healthier? It's doing amazing at the moment.


That's exactly what can happen. The swarm leaves most of the infection in the brood and comb of the old hive, and starts out relatively healthy.


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> That's exactly what can happen. The swarm leaves most of the infection in the brood and comb of the old hive, and starts out relatively healthy.



That makes perfect sense then. I forsee everything in my current bee yard going into a burn pile once the final hive succumbs to whatever disease is ravaging my bees. I'm not too bent out of shape about having to burn a bit of gear and tend to take a "better safe than sorry" approach to most things.

Now my questions are:

1. Is whatever honey that comes off of the strong hive this fall good to eat? From a few internet searches it sounds like it's perfectly fine as no bee disease or issue affects people.

2. Do I need to go crazy disinfecting things like my bee-suit, gloves and anything that's been in that bee yard? 

3. Can you ever really escape something like Nosema or AFB? Or am I going to be doomed to fight these things no matter where I place bees in the future? I have a perfect spot for a bees about 30 miles from my current bee yard and would love it if I could leave my bee ailments behind in the current yard and start with "clean bees".


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

oregonbeek said:


> I forsee everything in my current bee yard going into a burn pile once the final hive succumbs to whatever disease is ravaging my bees.


Not so fast. You are having no worse problems than happen to probably the majority of new beeks and they don't rush out & burn their gear. If it's AFB, you burn. But it doesn't look like AFB to me. 
Does it rope, or have AFB characteristic scale? If not, you're safe.



oregonbeek said:


> 1. Is whatever honey that comes off of the strong hive this fall good to eat? From a few internet searches it sounds like it's perfectly fine as no bee disease or issue affects people.


Yes you can eat it.


oregonbeek said:


> 2. Do I need to go crazy disinfecting things like my bee-suit, gloves and anything that's been in that bee yard?


If it's AFB, give them all a good wash with soapy water. (But again I don't think it's AFB).



oregonbeek said:


> 3. Can you ever really escape something like Nosema or AFB? Or am I going to be doomed to fight these things no matter where I place bees in the future? I have a perfect spot for a bees about 30 miles from my current bee yard and would love it if I could leave my bee ailments behind in the current yard and start with "clean bees".


Honestly, leave your bees where they are. You will work through these issues without having to move.

All I've said above comes from my experience with ailments such as mites, AFB, etc. But we don't have _Nosema C_ in my country so I have no experience with it. So perhaps someone else can also answer your questions as to what to do if it could be _Nosema C_.


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## Seymore (May 1, 2009)

Dang, OB - sorry for your losses.


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## jonathan (Nov 3, 2009)

Hi OB
Picking up on a few points.

If you have nosema, equipment including comb can be safely reused after fumigation with 80% acetic acid which is very effective against nosema spores. It will kill EFB spores but is not effective against AFB spores. I think I read on Randy Oliver's site that freezing for a few days is also very effective against nosema.

With nosema apis you often see streaking on the frames or the front of the box where the bees have defecated. There was some streaking on the last photo you posted. With nosema ceranae the streaking is usually absent. Your colony could have both nosema apis and nosema ceranae. A recent survey in Europe carried out by Robert Paxton and others confirmed that both can be present in the same colony.

A couple of years ago a member of my beekeeper association announced that he did not have mites as he had not seen a mite all summer. He decided there was no need to treat and he lost 27/28 colonies over winter. He got someone else with better eyesight to check and the bees had been riddled with mites. It is safer to assume you have mites and treat at appropriate times.

I would not set out honey from a dead colony for other colonies to eat due to the risk of spreading disease, especially AFB.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

I think I read on Randy Oliver's site that freezing for a few days is also very effective against nosema.

I do not believe that to be true at all. If it was, all equipment in Wisconsin that had winter deaths from Nosema would be clean, and we have seen that to NOT be the case.

Don't get too wild about sterilization until you identify precisely what is it that is afflicting your bees. Then you can devise a plan. 

Yes, we routinely clean our hive tools and smokers(the bellows part that you touch). It is just part of "Good housekeeping"

Crazy Roland


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

Thanks for the replies!



jonathan said:


> Hi OB
> 
> I would not set out honey from a dead colony for other colonies to eat due to the risk of spreading disease, especially AFB.



I realized that after I had already done it... =(

If it's anything "contagious", then all of my gear is swimming in whatever malady it happens to be. I'll have to keep a close eye on the final strong hive to see if it starts to weaken from whatever is affecting these hives.

Does soapy water kill AFB? Would a trip through my washing machine kill AFB on my bee suit? I'm not 100% sure it was AFB but I also don't want to infect new hives that I'll be buying.


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## winevines (Apr 7, 2007)

What are you waiting for? Submit a sample of dead bees to the Beltsville Bee lab for free analysis and/or call your Regional Bee Inspector.
As for mites- Float them in some alcohol and see what comes up to the surface.


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

I didn't even know you could do that. I'll work on getting a sample sent off as soon as I can. Thanks!


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## winevines (Apr 7, 2007)

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


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## johng (Nov 24, 2009)

No to hi jack the thread. But, since we are talking about AFB scale what does it look like? I've searched and don't find any good pics of the scale. Lots of pics of the rope test. Not any of the scale. Also does the rope test work on a hive like his that could of been dead for some time now??


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## jonathan (Nov 3, 2009)

Hi.
This was on Randy Oliver's site.

Scroll down to the bit about comb disinfection.

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/the-nosema-twins-part-5-alternative-treatments/



> Fortunately, nosema spores are easier to kill than AFB spores, so that combs can realistically be disinfected for reuse. Indeed, a number of CCD-afflicted beekeepers report that even simple storage, or “airing out” of combs for a few months appears to improve restocking success. So we wonder, just what toxic or infectious agent degrades during storage—is it nosema spores, viruses, pesticides, or something else?





> Update: N ceranae spores appear to be more delicate than those of N apis. They are less resistant to either heating or freezing. Dr. Robert Cramer found that heating them to 120°F for only 90 minutes was sufficient to kill them. He also found that they are very susceptible to either bleach or lye solutions.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

oregonbeek said:


> Does soapy water kill AFB? Would a trip through my washing machine kill AFB on my bee suit? I'm not 100% sure it was AFB but I also don't want to infect new hives that I'll be buying.


No, doesn't kill the spores.

What happens, is firstly, that AFB is not a disease that one spore can cause an infection. AFB can only infect a hive when there are sufficient spores to kill larvae. Otherwise the disease cannot spread. It takes a large number of spores being fed to a larvae, to build to sufficient numbers to kill it at pupation. A mild infection will not kill the larva so the disease will not be spread around the hive.

So after working an infested hive, our government recommended procedure is to wash clothes, gloves, etc thoroughly with soapy water, such as in a washing machine to get residual spore numbers down to below the numbers needed to meet the infection causing threshold. Hive tools, smokers etc can be washed best as possible and then treated with bleach, which kills AFB spores. Propolis, such as may be on a hive tool, is impervious to both washing and bleach, so should be flamed, a hive tool can be put in an open smoker and the smoker puffed up till it's flaming.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

johng said:


> I've searched and don't find any good pics of the scale.


Line drawings: http://www.beesource.com/resources/usda/diseases-and-pests-of-honey-bees/


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

Well I stuck a stick into some of the capped brood and out comes a stick black mass from a few of them... so now i'm fairly certain my hives have AFB =( (unless something else can cause the brood to turn into a greasy black slimy tadpole-colored mass that comes out of the cell when I poke a stick in)


That said, is there any hope at all for the healthy hive? My thinking now for that hive is to just push as much honey out of it as possible, shake the bees and burn it all. 

I'm still nearly flabergasted that my seemingly healthy hives that appeared to go into the winter so strong, died to one of the worst diseases bees can get, completely out of the blue for me. 

Live and learn I guess.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

Unless it's ropey and strings off the stick, it's not AFB. Probably EFB, in which case I wouldn't burn. Better be certain.


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

winevines said:


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



I just cut off a good sized chunk of the brood comb and stuck it in a paper bag, boxed it and will get it sent off first thing tomorrow. I'll report back no matter what kind of result I get. Thank you for that tip!

As it stands, I'm praying for mites because at least I can treat that...


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

Barry said:


> Unless it's ropey and strings off the stick, it's not AFB. Probably EFB, in which case I wouldn't burn. Better be certain.



I'm not positive that it was super "ropey"... but definitely looked the part. Hopefully that test will tell me.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

i lost a hive to afb this spring. had the dark ropey stuff coming out of the perforated capped cells. not too surprising considering this particular hive used to belong to a now deceased beekeeper, who i later found out had an afb problem, and had been treating all of his hives twice a year with antibiotics.

i sent a sample to beltsville for conformation, and they were very fast at getting the results back to me.

i wouldn't burn until you get the lab results back. 

i decided to burn all of the frames, the bottom board, and the inner cover. i torched and bleached the inside of the boxes and the top cover, and i am reusing them.

unfortunately, i had already been moving brood frames around between hives, and i'm unsure which hives the drawn comb from last year's honey harvest come from.

i am quarantining the yard this hive was in, watching very close, and rotating out any really old black frames.

your remaining hive might be just fine, especially if they didn't rob the dead one and carry back infected honey with them.

you could consider a one time prophylactic dose of terramycin or tylosin on your remaining hive if the lab results are positive.


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## ken rice (Apr 28, 2010)

Hive #3 needs more bees, Do you have a super of bees you could do a newspaper combine. That queen will not lay if she does'nt have enough bees to keep the brood warm.Hive#2, If you didn't do any mite counts or some kind of mite treatment, trust me you have mites. I believe mites are what took this hive down.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

correction: remaining hive_*s*_


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

squarepeg, I hope that all works out for you and you don't get any more AFB. Hopefully my test will come back as a mite issue instead of AFB. I have country rubes bottom boards with a sticky board... wouldn't I have gotten mites on my sticky board at some point? As it is now they only thing I've ever seen stuck to the sticky board is bits of sawdust.

As tempting as it is to try and save that 3rd hive, I'm afraid I'd be throwing good money at bad, because I don't think that it stands a chance. I'm surprised it's even alive as it is. *Also*, I said that there was no brood in that hive, but upon further inspection there was actually a small patch of the same bad brood pattern, and I even saw a few dead pupae in around the dead capped brood. And again, I have no idea what this means exactly.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

thanks ob, and likewise, hopefully for you and your bees the lab results will reveal the lesser of the evils.

i'm chalking it up to learning and getting experience.

i might have considered burning everything after getting the positive lab results, but i had built up to 10 hives with supers, all new equipment, and bought the extractor and the whole nine yards. that's why i decided to try and salvage the yard and work through it.

i did a one time prophylactic treatment with tylosin on all of hives, with the understanding of the downsides. but i have no intention of continuing regular treatments. most of the hives in this yard are fresh starts that i made last season.

i also started some hives in two other locations, and will not mix and match them with this yard.

if i see any new infestations, i'll burn boxes and all. if i can get through a couple of years without any, i'll feel ok about selling nucs from this yard.

afb still doesn't explain all of the dead bees in the one hive. i like your queenless theory. 

as for mites, i'm playing catch up. i spent a couple of weeks going through randy oliver's papers, and i ordered a bee shaker. i'll be doing mite counts soon. fortunately, my new starts are from bees that come from a treatment free supplier.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

You have just learned why some of us that have been around awhile prefer to do frequent inspections. You probably had AFB last fall, but did not notice it.

Crazy Roland
Linden Apiary, est. 1852


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

I can see why you are trying to salvage everything squarepeg. It's hard enough burning 2 hives and I can't imagine burning 10. 

Roland: If I would have seen AFB last fall what could have I done? If I would have known the hives were going to die I would have probably harvested *all *of the honey and just let them die I suppose.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

squarepeg said:


> if i can get through a couple of years without any, i'll feel ok about selling nucs from this yard.


You can do what you like with your bees and equipment but if you are going to sell bees and not tell the potential buyer that you had AFB in this yard then your actions are shady. How do you suppose you got it in the first place?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Acebird said:


> your actions are shady.


 To quick to judge. Squarepegs whole management plan is good practise.

After the hives have been non symptomatic for two years, without drugs, plus proper quaranteen procedures, they may be considered clean.

If somebody really wants to be sure, they could send a sample of bees for testing at a lab. But almost certainly after 2 years non symptomatic, AFB spores would be well withing safe numbers, or zero.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Oldtimer said:


> If somebody really wants to be sure, they could send a sample of bees for testing at a lab. But almost certainly after 2 years non symptomatic, AFB spores would be well withing safe numbers, or zero.


Nonsense, the person selling the nucs should be sure. The onus is on the supplier to test the bees not the consumer. Certify that they are clean or tell the customer that the bees they are getting come from an apiary that had an AFB outbreak.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

I have no issues with the supplier having the bees tested, which is why I suggested it. Where's the nonsense?

If I was buying bees from a yard that had AFB 2 years ago, provided it had been clean for 2 years without drugs, and proper quaranteen had been followed, I might get the bees lab tested just to be sure, but the result would likely be a foregone conclusion.

For somebody in the position of selling bees when they have had an AFB infection in the past, having bees lab tested prior to sale, can be helpful because it allows full disclosure but also puts the purchasers mind at rest.

Just as a point of interest, a survey of wild hives in my country was done a few years ago. Bee samples were taken from the entrances of just over 140 wild hives and lab tested for AFB. Bees from more than 1/2 the hives had some AFB spores. So a nil lab result may be hard to get, even from your own hives Ace. What's important is it's below the infective threshold.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Oldtimer said:


> What's important is it's below the infective threshold.


Without antibiotics for the two years. Still, given the choice most people would not buy from someone that had an outbreak especially if you were a newbie and read anything about AFB.
As a newbie I might buy from Mark, Michael Palmer, Michael Bush, or even Crazy Roland knowing they may have had a outbreak but I wouldn't buy from someone that just has ten hives experience. Would you buy from me if you knew I had an AFB outbreak?
Ten hives is diddly squat if you are in the business of selling nucs.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Acebird said:


> Would you buy from me if you knew I had an AFB outbreak?


Yes I would, if no drugs had been used, proper quaranteen had been followed, and 2 years clean had elapsed. As you are a newbie I'd also get the bees tested incase not all was as you thought it was.

However, you raise a valid point, that most people would prefer not to buy from somebody who had AFB at some point in the past. But AFB can hit ANYBODY, it should not be a death knell for those honest enough to admitt to it, I'd rather buy from somebody upfront.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Oldtimer said:


> But AFB can hit ANYBODY, it should not be a death knell for those honest enough to admit to it, I'd rather buy from somebody upfront.


That is kinda my point if you admit it you are showing the potential customer you know what you are doing. If you hide it, then it looks shady to me.


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## Vermillion (Feb 10, 2012)

Oldtimer said:


> Yes I would, if no drugs had been used, proper quaranteen had been followed, and 2 years clean had elapsed. As you are a newbie I'd also get the bees tested incase not all was as you thought it was.
> 
> However, you raise a valid point, that most people would prefer not to buy from somebody who had AFB at some point in the past. But AFB can hit ANYBODY, it should not be a death knell for those honest enough to admitt to it, I'd rather buy from somebody upfront.


Do you mean two years after the last outbreak and all the contaminated equipment destroyed or irradiated?
just curious.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Yes. In my country it's illegal to use drugs for AFB, so all infection is burned. So a protocol has developed (not always used by all unfortunately) for how to eventually be free of AFB. 

A typical scenario may be that somebody has, say, 20 hives, and they discover AFB in 3 of them. Along with that comes the realisation that they've swapped a bit of gear around, and it's likely that although they burn the 3 infected hives, some of the other hives are probably contaminated but they don't know which ones.

So, the method used is to burn existing infected hives. The rest of the hives are numbered so quaranteen can be applied. This means that on hive 1, all boxes are marked with a 1. So honey can be harvested etc, but boxes are only returned to the same hive, ie, each hive is quaranteened from each other. If any new cases of AFB crop up, they are burned. Once it has been 2 years since the date of the last infection in the yard, quaranteen can be lifted and the yard is considered clean.

For commercial guys following a major outbreak, they probably cannot quaranteen individual hives, but they'll quaranteen yards. As the number of AFB infected yards reduces, they'll get to a point where there are few enough infected yards left that they can quaranteen individual hives in those yards, until a point is reached where their operation is clean, or nearly so.

Expensive and time consuming? Yes. But likely no more so than the alternatives. If only everybody would actually follow this we would probably have an even lower incidence of AFB.


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## Vermillion (Feb 10, 2012)

Oldtimer said:


> Yes. In my country it's illegal to use drugs for AFB, so all infection is burned. So a protocol has developed (not always used by all unfortunately) for how to eventually be free of AFB.
> 
> ...
> 
> Expensive and time consuming? Yes. But likely no more so than the alternatives. If only everybody would actually follow this we would probably have an even lower incidence of AFB.


Thank you for taking the time to explain that, Oldtimer. I really appreciate that.
I can see how frustrating it would be for those that follow it to see others not do so and continue to spread the problem.

cheers!


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Roland: If I would have seen AFB last fall what could have I done? 

Reduce entrances to reduce robbing.
Remove all honey.
Treat with antibiotics and feed(you said it was fall).
Wait 14 days. 
Shake all the bees out into new or sterilized equipment with foundation and feed.

There are many variations on this plan, the idea being that the comb is the source of infection, and that the spores can only last in the bees so long. Some plans replace the comb again after 14 or so days. The advantage is that the bees survive. The woodenware is scorched, and the frames boiled in lye and new foundation installed.

Crazy Roland


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## Bees&Wood (May 18, 2011)

oregonbeek,
Did you ever get the results back from the sample you sent off? Maybe I missed it in the previous threads...but I'd like to know what they told you.... Thanks.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

i was curious too.


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

I'm still waiting on the samples. I've never sent any samples off so I'm not sure how long they are supposed to take. I'll post here as soon as I know anything.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

they got back to me on my cell phone a few days after i mailed the sample, but i sent it by overnite shipping.


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

Well I just got my results back today and for diagnosis it said:

"No disease found"

And that was all that was in the report. So I guess that totally rules out AFB or Nosema? Or what consitutes a disease? Does this leave mites as a possibility? Or am I back to "small hive cluster" or "weak/dead queen"? Maybe this means I shouldn't have thrown away that hive lol. I guess I'll keep that bee yard going after all. That still doesn't tell me what exactly it was then.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

It pretty much rules out AFB and nosema. It does not nessecarily rule out mites, depending just where you took the bee sample from. Did you send adult bees also or only brood?


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

Well on their submission page it says not to send bees if they've been dead for a long time so I just sent the ugliest piece of brood/comb that I could cut out of the dead hive. They never mentioned mites, yet I'm not sure if they would have mentioned it if they did see mites.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

great news no afb found! so your equipment is good, and the drawn comb will come in handy. i still like the queenless theory.

did you include the gooey brood in your sample?


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

Thanks! I do think that it is great news! =) 

I included the worst piece of brood/brood comb that I could. I hope I didn't just happen to get a "clean" piece of brood, where all the other brood in the hive was infected and I just happened to get an "un-infected" piece. But I'm not sure that's exactly how AFB works. Wouldn't it be the case that if some brood in the hive had AFB, then all probably would have at least showed the infection? I sent in a pretty good sized chunk of brood for them.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

i can't help but feel that they would have found afb in the gooey cells if it were there. it was probably a viral infection. be sure and keep a good eye on the remaining hives. pull a few drone larva here an there looking for mites. how's the weak hive doing these days? have you had a chance to read what randy oliver has published on mites and nosema?


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

I'll try and get out to the remaining hives asap and once I do I'll give a report back here on how they are looking =) I'll try and check for mites as well.


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

Well crap, the "healthy" remaining hive has mites! Time to eat my crow 

I went out to the hives today and first I checked the hive that was nearly dead with the queen and 200 bees, fully expecting them to all be dead, but much to my surprise there is still a live queen in that hive being followed around by a remaining 50 or so bees. I didn't see any healthy brood in that hive but it does look like the remaining bees had gathered a bit of nectar. I have no idea what's going on in that hive and I'm still shocked that such a small number of bees are surviving the 16 degree nights. 

After that I went to the remaining healthy hive to see if they were making any progress on the honey supers that I installed a couple weeks ago. From what I can tell they haven't done much of anything in the supers, but we don't have a big flow yet so that doesn't surprise me too much. I pulled a frame out of the top deep to check for brood and there was a decent supply of healthy looking brood, however when a couple white brood fell out from in between the frames. I noticed a little dot on the brood, looked closer, and sure enough, a little mite was feasting on the brood. I flicked out a couple other brood and didn't see any more mites, nor did I see any mites piggybacking on any of the live bees running around the frame. I did pull out my screened bottom-board insert and noticed a few dozen dead mites in with the sawdust. I replaced the supers and put the hive back together and left the bee-yard. 

So I have mites in the bee-yard. It's obviously not a shocker to any of the veteran bee-keepers who enlightened me to this possibility, but this is the 3rd spring with these bees and I hadn't seen any signs of mites until now, and I've checked the sticky bottom boards every so often, as well as brood. Perhaps my mite numbers hit exponential growth last fall and took out the hives in the winter.

Can mites wipe out 2 strong hives in a winter? Does that explain why 1 hive looks like thousands of bees in the hive all died at the same time, or why in the other hive the numbers dwindled over a winter and all that is left is a queen and 50 workers? The brood comb tested negative for disease so does that rule out mite-related viruses? 

And what will likely become of my 3rd healthy hive? Is there any hope for honey this summer out of a hive with mites? You can't treat for mites with honey supers on can you? Do I need to take off the supers and treat for mites?

Thank you again!


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Don't worry.

a CONSTANT feature of this forum is people posting something like " My hive has X wrong with it please tell me what the problem is, just don't say it's mites cos I know they don't have any mites". They then describe the symptoms and it's obviously mites, but you can't say that cos they will not accept it.

I think it's because of all the treatment free stuff floating around, they get to thinking you just ignore mites and all will be well. They even get told the worst thing they can do is actually do something about the mites, so they don't, often ends in tears unfortunately.



oregonbeek said:


> Can mites wipe out 2 strong hives in a winter? Does that explain why 1 hive looks like thousands of bees in the hive all died at the same time, or why in the other hive the numbers dwindled over a winter and all that is left is a queen and 50 workers?


Yes, yes, and yes.





oregonbeek said:


> And what will likely become of my 3rd healthy hive? Is there any hope for honey this summer out of a hive with mites? You can't treat for mites with honey supers on can you? Do I need to take off the supers and treat for mites?


Not possible to answer. Depends how many mites in the healthy hive. You can use some kinds of treatment with honey on, other kinds of treatment you can't.


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

Oh I didn't know that there were treatments you can do with honey supers on. Does anyone have a good suggestion for what they would use?

As of now my plan is to basically leave that hive alone and report back here on how much honey (if any) I get off of the hive this fall.

I also now have 6 new hives going about half an hour from this bee yard. 3 Italians and 3 Carniolans. Hopefully they do better than this first set of hives.


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## geebob (Apr 4, 2011)

You can treat with Mite Away Quick Strips (MAQS) while you have honey supers on. You will probably see a shut down in brood rearing after treatment, but that can actually increase your honey crop.


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## oregonbeek (Mar 30, 2010)

Thank you! I will look into them.


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