AFB and saving a queen.

[keith pierce]

thankfully so far i have never had American Fowl Brood but i am aware that it could pop up at anystage. So here is a question that has popped into my head as i start thinking of my first spring inspections when i go looking for the queen and an inspection of the brood for disease. Say i come across a colony from one of my quietest and best producers with a couple of cells of AFB and i have another agressive colony that needs requeening. What are the chances of cross contamination if i requeened the agressive hive with the AFB queen.

 

[Russel]

Hi Keith,
No expert but extremly high, she gets all over the place so will come into contact with the spores that cause American Foalbroad, also those spores can lay dormant for decades hence the burn/scorch equipment policy in the UK.
The beekeeper is one of the main transmitters of the disease.

 

[Goran]

thankfully so far i have never had American Fowl Brood but i am aware that it could pop up at anystage. So here is a question that has popped into my head as i start thinking of my first spring inspections when i go looking for the queen and an inspection of the brood for disease. Say i come across a colony from one of my quietest and best producers with a couple of cells of AFB and i have another agressive colony that needs requeening. What are the chances of cross contamination if i requeened the agressive hive with the AFB queen.

General practice at my place: if it is strong colony with early stages of AFB - ( veterinary inspector determine situation), it can be done shook out ( "double shake"). None "medications" used.
But even after that most of beeks requeen colony after. So far had no chance to prove it in practice. But my thinking is that it would be safer for me to burn whole and move on..

 

[pargyle]

thankfully so far i have never had American Fowl Brood but i am aware that it could pop up at anystage. So here is a question that has popped into my head as i start thinking of my first spring inspections when i go looking for the queen and an inspection of the brood for disease. Say i come across a colony from one of my quietest and best producers with a couple of cells of AFB and i have another agressive colony that needs requeening. What are the chances of cross contamination if i requeened the agressive hive with the AFB queen.

Non starter .. any confirmed sign of AFB in the Uk and the colony has to be destroyed and the equipment burnt. The Bee Inspector will supervise ... don't even think about not reporting it or trying to save the colony.

 

[Finman]

Hi Keith,
No expert but extremly high, she gets all over the place so will come into contact with the spores that cause American Foalbroad, also those spores can lay dormant for decades hence the burn/scorch equipment policy in the UK.
The beekeeper is one of the main transmitters of the disease.

I am expert, and it does not happen so. UK policy can be what ever, but there are new facts, how to treat AFB.

Usual way us to move bees with queen to foundations. When bees consume honey in their stomach, spores will be dismis with feces

So it happens in many other countries.


.
.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Non starter .. any confirmed sign of AFB in the Uk and the colony has to be destroyed and the equipment burnt. The Bee Inspector will supervise ... don't even think about not reporting it or trying to save the colony.

Keith is not in the UK.

 

[mbc]

Hi Keith,
No expert but extremly high, she gets all over the place so will come into contact with the spores that cause American Foalbroad, also those spores can lay dormant for decades hence the burn/scorch equipment policy in the UK.
The beekeeper is one of the main transmitters of the disease.

Wrong.
Extremely low, but still a risk.
Time to link a favourite paper of mine in supporting evidence, even swarms issuing from infected hives have a good chance of not succumbing to clinical afb.
https://www.researchgate.net/public...vae_in_honeybees_Apis_mellifera_Vet_Microbiol

 

[pargyle]

Keith is not in the UK.

Ah ... Missed the irish flag we usually see .. advice as far as I'm concerned should be the same ... too much risk attached to it spreading.

 

[pargyle]

I am expert, and it does not happen so. UK policy can be what ever, but there are new facts, how to treat AFB.

Usual way us to move bees with queen to foundations. When bees consume honey in their stomach, spores will be dismis with feces

So it happens in many other countries.
.
.

And that's probably why they see more instances of AFB than we do here in the UK ?

 

[Hivemaker.]

I am expert, and it does not happen so. UK policy can be what ever, but there are new facts, how to treat AFB.

Usual way us to move bees with queen to foundations. When bees consume honey in their stomach, spores will be dismis with feces

So it happens in many other countries.
.

That is the way it used to be done here.

 

[keith pierce]

If you were to get cross contamination how quick would you see it in the brood and then how long before you could say the colony was in the clear.

 

[Finman]

.
Tylosine is very effective antibiot against AFB. In Finland we can use Tylosin, but we cannot sell the honey, which has tylosine.

But spores stay inside pupa silk, but brood can be saved, and when brood have emerged, you may do artificial swarm on foundations and save the bees.

UK has old fashion system towards EFB too. In most countries they say that change the queen, and European foul brood will vanish. And it really do so.

And chalk brood. Buy new queens and change the genepool of apiary.

.

 

[mbc]

If you were to get cross contamination how quick would you see it in the brood and then how long before you could say the colony was in the clear.

If you're good at it you'll spot the first infected cell.
If you read the paper you'll see that in swarms issuing from infected colonies they could detect paenibacillus for a while but if the swarm didn't show clinical signs of afb then in six months they could no longer detect any paenibacillus (if my memory serves correctly).

 

[Finman]

If you were to get cross contamination how quick would you see it in the brood and then how long before you could say the colony was in the clear.

Only way is to make test in laboratory and look, how the disease has vanished So we do. And so do Germans.

Germans have researched that spores can be found in laboratory 2 years before visual symptons appear.


But I would say that mere queen is not so valuable that all this is worth to do.

Burn the bees and frames, as law says. Buy a new good queen. Its price is not much.
.

 

[mbc]

But I would say that mere queen is not so valuable that all this is woth to do.

.

 

[keith pierce]

But finman, I LOVE her.

 

[Goran]

But finnman, I LOVE her.

" I Love You , I´ll Kill You "

 

[Finman]

But finman, I LOVE her.

Oh dear!

I send to you some tylosine.

 

[Finman]

That is the way it used to be done here.

I have been in British forums 10 years. i know exactly what you do.

Even if you do, what you do, it makes no sense to deliver wrong information about that disease. If is serious disease, and it does not become better if advisors starts" I don't know but....".

.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I have been in British forums 10 years. i know exactly what you do.

You've been in the wrong place then, try reading a book instead, honey farming by ROB Manley.