American foulbrood cleaning and control

[GuyNir]

I tend to use this: Anigene HLD4V High Level Disinfectant Cleaner

Do you need to wash this with water? I’ve been using F10, which I can spray and leave on to dry. The one you mentioned above is cheaper.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

There is sometimes a lot of rot spoken about disinfectants and AFB. Why inconvenience yourself and opt for the nuclear option?
Research has shown that immersion for twenty minutes in a solution of 0.5% sodium hypochlorite kills AFB spores and
other bacteria. Therefore if you are using domestic bleach you need to make a solution of one part
household bleach to five parts water. Of course if you buy a five gallon can of dairy hypochloride from you farmer's coop or any animal feed supplier to 'clean your patio' You have an even stronger mix

 

[Finman]

Virkon's pretty nasty too! Used for cleaning some fishing kit here but can delaminate the rods if left on too long.

Virkon works like hydrogen perokside.
If it spoils your fishing rod, it is not an argument as strelizing chemical.

 

[Wilco]

Do you need to wash this with water? I’ve been using F10, which I can spray and leave on to dry. The one you mentioned above is cheaper.

I generally tend to rinse things after applying disinfectant but haven't read the data sheet recently. In clinical work it's not normally rinsed off surfaces but is off instrument's.

 

[oliver90owner]

What are you going to do with the ground, under and around the hive(s)?

 

[Finman]

What are you going to do with the ground, under and around the hive(s)?

Good question. Bees have spores in their poo, and they spread their poo inside 100 yards.
AFB spores can be found in honey 2 years before you can see it visually in the brood combs. So, bees have contaminated the surroundings during 3 years.

So you shoud clean 4 hectares area around you, buy surely you have not met such advice from researchers.

But all this is is pure imagination. The AFB does not spread this way via environment. At least I have not seen such information.

One thing is to sterilize car's tyres. I have noy seen such inpormation in bee litterature. Such told Jenkins, but it is self made story.

If AFB is so easy to spread, what you imagine, you would not have any healthy colony in the UK.

 

[Finman]

Perhaps you know, that Scandinavia and Germany have very different advices, how to manage ABF in your apiary. But it is vain to tell it to you.

I found from google 2 years old Canadian advices, what they do to the sick hives. Those are vain advices too, because you have your own. 80% out of Canadian beekeepers are professionals.

And hobby beekeepers invent their own rules, even if they have not met even the whole disease.

I know, how the disease can be cleaned away from apiary. We have in our usage the German procedure and it works in practice. And it is veryfied in the Swedish doctor studies too. Germany had 10 years study, how to polish AFB from bee yards. And that is the basic of the Scandinavian method.
.

 

[Frazer Munro]

and my frustration to finally get rid of AFB

I do wish you well. This is not something I've had to deal with ... ever... (50 years of experience).
I respectfully believe you should consider preventing, rather than waiting to cure in the future. We now know that bees immune systems are supported through good nutrition. Nutrition which is provided by having them feed honey and a variety of pollens. Reference supplied if necessary.

 

[Finman]

I do wish you well. This is not something I've had to deal with ... ever... (50 years of experience).
I respectfully believe you should consider preventing, rather than waiting to cure in the future. We now know that bees immune systems are supported through good nutrition. Nutrition which is provided by having them feed honey and a variety of pollens. Reference supplied if necessary.

I have had 50 y ABF, and I know really much about it. Now I get ridd of it when I carried all old frames to dumping place.

Nutrition has nothing to do with AFB. It is European foulbrood EFB which has.

There are not such bee strains which have immuniry to AFB, but to EFB immunity is common.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Nutrition which is provided by having them feed honey and a variety of pollens. Reference supplied if necessary.

It would be interesting to see that - peer reviewed with corroboration ideally

 

[Finman]

It would be interesting to see that - peer reviewed with corroboration ideally

Frazer mixes EFB and AFB or remenbers wrong.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Add CBPV to that - just for luck

 

[Boston Bees]

I do wish you well. This is not something I've had to deal with ... ever... (50 years of experience).
I respectfully believe you should consider preventing, rather than waiting to cure in the future. We now know that bees immune systems are supported through good nutrition. Nutrition which is provided by having them feed honey and a variety of pollens. Reference supplied if necessary.

Good nutrition prevents AFB in the same way that an apple a day prevents Ebola

 

[Finman]

an apple a day prevents Ebola

That is what it what we needed. Getting better

 

[drdrday]

Either way, good nutrition doesn't really help Tim to successfully get rid of AFB spores that are already present in the apiary - the original query in this thread.

 

[Tim23]

Either way, good nutrition doesn't really help Tim to successfully get rid of AFB spores that are already present in the apiary - the original query in this thread.

Thank you everyone for your advice which has been helpful and confirmed my actions. I do not want to subject my bees to this again or cause risk to others. I have therefore destroyed all bees, frames, all hives, equipments etc and totally cleared the site. All surfaces, extractor rooms, bee shed, cars etc have been cleaned with vercon S and 50/50 bleach as has areas around the hive stands etc. Soil will be turned over and bleached. Feral swarm will also he dealt with. Re stocking only after the winter.
Very sad and an important message to local bee keepers as it was only spotted in a few cells and therefore hard to see.
Optimistically, now is the time to go for poly hives and brighter futures and kind local bee keepers have offered bees (pre inspected of course!) that will be shook swarms in. Thanks again.all.

 

[Boston Bees]

Thank you everyone for your advice which has been helpful and confirmed my actions. I do not want to subject my bees to this again or cause risk to others. I have therefore destroyed all bees, frames, all hives, equipments etc and totally cleared the site. All surfaces, extractor rooms, bee shed, cars etc have been cleaned with vercon S and 50/50 bleach as has areas around the hive stands etc. Soil will be turned over and bleached. Feral swarm will also he dealt with. Re stocking only after the winter.
Very sad and an important message to local bee keepers as it was only spotted in a few cells and therefore hard to see.
Optimistically, now is the time to go for poly hives and brighter futures and kind local bee keepers have offered bees (pre inspected of course!) that will be shook swarms in. Thanks again.all.

Very sad to hear but the right thing to do I'm sure. Other beekeepers, and bees, in the area will benefit greatly from your actions.

 

[Patrick1]

It is so distressing to get either EFB or AFB nearly 4 years ago I get EFB in one of my breeding apiaries with 48 hive 1 hive infected. I had nearly 300 hives in an area of less than 6 miles, 4 apiaries within 2 miles and 2 apiaries around 200 yards apart. The two had 96 hives, in the first apiary with 48 hives I took the decision to cull all of them, you can only imagine how long it took to build the breading stock from breeder queens from Denmark at 450 euros each, you basically need 4 of these to get the progeny right.

When my SBI revisited to check the other apiaries, the second apiary with another 48 hives turned up two infections, I was devastated, I took the same decision again. I have been free since then. In 20 years of beekeeping it was the only time I had to do something so drastic. It is as much about protecting your neighbors as yourself.

 

[madasafish]

I had AFB in 6 out of 7 hives in 2015. Followed the standard UK procedure - destroying frames, cleaning hives, boards etc, killing bees. Nothing else.
One hive untouched, clear.
Ground left untreated.
So far not seen AFB again.
Source abandoned hive 0.5km away.

As for nutrition preventing AFB,!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Finman]

As for nutrition preventing AFB,!!!!!!!!!!

How heck you do that? Bees gather such food from pastures what is out there.

You think that if the food is poor, they will get AFB? ... Every year along the season food is poor.