Afb

[Finman]

Some bees are resistant to AFB.

http://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/abs/2001/06/spivak/spivak.html

Australians have researches carefully how to get ridd of AFB. They cannot use antibiots and they have strict disease control system.

But they say that even if yard is totally free from disease, sooner or later yard gets again disease from wild nests. There are lots of wild swarms in nature and migration of hives move disease easily.


The worst disease spreader is previous year honey in super combs, because honey has spores.

 

[Thymallus]

Some bees are resistant to AFB.

http://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/abs/2001/06/spivak/spivak.html

IF I recall correctly it was found to be due to 2 recessive genes, one for uncapping and one for removing dead bees inside the cells. When the hygienic bees were cross bred with non hygeinec bees non showed the hygienic traits but on back crossing a small number of the hives (1/4 I think) showed the uncapping trait and non showed the removing trait.....until the researchers killed and physically uncapped some brood in the non uncapping colonies and now they found that about 1/4 of these removed the brood. You need both genes for successful AFB resistance.
The problem wih the breeding is that unless selection pressure is kept on the bees the genes (recessive ones) get masked. I suspect the Lassi research into hygienic bees will find something similar, if not the same.

 

[Thymallus]

J
Perhaps the foundation producers can answer that one?

If the spores are stuck in the foundation wax then they are inaccessible to the bees, unless they start eating it....

 

[Finman]

If the spores are stuck in the foundation wax then they are inaccessible to the bees, unless they start eating it....

It is known that foundations does not move AFB.

 

[Finman]

You need both genes for successful AFB resistance.

There are straind of bees which resist better AFD better than others, but there is no absolute AFD resistancy, even if it has been tried to breed tens of years. As far as I know.

Absolute EFB and Chalkbrood resistancy exist very much.
And the reason is not hygienic behaviour.

 

[Finman]

.
In Finland, as in many other countries AFB sick colony will be shaken on foundations. Bees consume their belly honey in wax making and the colony will be free from spores.

Wooden parts of hives will be burnes with probane torsh.
Plastic hives will be sterilized with 3% lye.

Old frames can be burned and hidden disease will be cleaned in lye water boiling.

 

[mbc]

The worst disease spreader is previous year honey in super combs, because honey has spores.

By far the worst way of spreading afb is beekeepers making splits with diseased brood combs, supers may have spores of afb but are far less likely to cause a clinical afb case than a brood comb.
Remarkably, bees have resistance to quite large numbers of spores, colonies can rob out diseased dead outs riddled with spores and scale and yet remain free of clinical symptoms. I'll try and remember where I read it and post a link but iirc afb could be detected in the robbing colonies by pcr testing samples of bees, but if the colony didn't come down with clinical afb in 6 months then no afb could be detected.
From wicki:
"The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a technology in molecular biology used to amplify a single copy or a few copies of a piece of DNA across several orders of magnitude, generating thousands to millions of copies of a particular DNA sequence."

The mechanism behind the bees not succumbing seems to be the mechanical action of the good work of the proventriculous filtering out the spores, similarly one of the reasons afb is so insidious is also mechanical, the bees simply cannot clean out the infectious sticky gloop.

 

[Finman]

The worst disease spreader is previous year honey in super combs, because honey has spores.

..........That is from Australian research. And in Australia.

.

 

[Finman]

.
There was one research when they reviele out spreading of disease. Perhaps it was German research.
There were 10 clean hives. To one hive it was given AFB honey as a form of cleaning wet combs. Soon in all 10 hives were detected AFB spores.

In German researches it was found, that spores can be detected with laboratory test 2 years before visuals symptons can be seen.

In Austaralia it has been found that AFB can disappear from hive by itself.

There are much more hidden level AFB in yards than visual symtons.

It was researched in Sweden too that swarm does move AFB to its new hive.

And so on.

BEST preventive practice is that every hive has own furnitures. Moving frames and brood from hive to hive spread disease...if you have it.

.

 

[For want of a better word]

Croydon has that effect on me - peanuts or no!

Possibly the hum that comes from the Trams brakes ?

 

[BeeJayBee]

More afb in Yorkshire

"10 km squares with American Foulbrood - 2015" list on this page http://www.nationalbeeunit.com/public/BeeDiseases/afbReport.cfm

 

[bontbee]

Not a huge distance apart, then... Hope your bees stay healthy.

(There isn't a fingers crossed emoticon, is there?)