Some advice please - cbpv?

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I think a lot of us here would completely disagree. It’s a favourite social media tag line like “ save the bees”

and usually an excuse for mediocre beekeeping

 

[Erichalfbee]

Well, maybe but it's a line that means little. How do bees in a split that refuse to make a new queen after the material to do so is repeatedly offered? Why do bees cast after cast till there is nothing viable of their original colony? Do they not know that most of those casts have little chance of survival? Just two amongst a myriad of examples

 

[LeaBees]

Yes, that is correct

Great thanks,
Is it safe to assume any live/mobile bees on the floor when coming to clean out are infected/on their way out and can be swept up and disposed off ?

And i imagine you determined by amount of deadfall and maybe checking for odd behaviour when they were through the problem?

 

[Erichalfbee]

This is the latest report from my contact


I will tell you more in the next couple of days, but the weaker hive had just dead drones under...and only about ten. Two weeks ago, I took apart the stronger hive with no mortality. Last week I properly inspected again but realised that by using smoke many bees are forces down into the enclosed stand. They are still doing well, n
But potentially an issue if you still have mortality to force them down to infected bees. My strategy of minimum disturbance - inspect once per fortnight, but monitor by lifting off boxes is a must. This may be a down side of my boxed stands, and with wasps yet to arrive en mass and fairly isolated, they probably would have been fine, but it ma be that it is extra protection at this time of year, or if they were closer to other colonies. I need to go through the weaker colony properly tomorrow, so will lift the brood boxes away before smoking. Overall, the idea of removing the floor has been a huge success.

The idea for the next time if there ever is one is to have a removable tray on the ground which can be slid out to collect dead and dying bees

 

[Malcolm Stamp]

I think CBPV is much more prevalent than is realised: I had 3 colonies that looked healthy enough but were not doing as well as I expected, I requeened them all and put their queens in mini nucs as insurance. Within a couple of weeks those 3 nucs just had black twitchy sick bees and one queen died. The hives look better now but I shall treat them with caution. If I had known I would have bitten the bullet and destroyed the hives.

 

[JohnRB]

Great thanks,
Is it safe to assume any live/mobile bees on the floor when coming to clean out are infected/on their way out and can be swept up and disposed off ?

And i imagine you determined by amount of deadfall and maybe checking for odd behaviour when they were through the problem?

I just swept up any bees under the hive and put them on the compost heap. I didn't check them too closely.

After 10 days the floor went back and I went back to normal weekly inspections. In fact everything is so normal that I'd almost forgotten about it until your post. It was only a mild case (as confirmed by the SBI) and so I think I was lucky and caught them in time.

 

[KittyB]

and usually an excuse for mediocre beekeeping

Being a fanboy for Eric must be very rewarding. I find your smug air of superiority quite sad. You have no clue what I did with my bees, other than what I wrote, and yet you sit in judgement and imply I am a mediocre beekeeper. What exactly makes you the arbiter of good beekeeping? Hubris is such an unattractive quality but it is rife on forums like this.
I shook the bees out onto a white sheet in front of the hive and watched as the bees marched back in, having moved the colony away from my other hives. It was an act of desperation, predicated on advice from a forum just like this, from a keyboard expert just like you. Whether you like it or not, a colony on the point of collapse recovered.
I really care about my bees and think they are perfection in nature. I think that being able to work with them is a privilege and realise that we have so much to learn from the way they work as a superorganism, and if that makes me a subject of ridicule by people like you then so be it, I won't apologise for appreciating the genius of bees.

Eric, thank you for posting a photo of yourself next to your hives. Hilarious. I don't know whether you were posting to impress other beekeepers with the height of your super stacks, but it has to go into the same category as photos of men holding large carp, or standing next to an oversized motorhome.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Eric, thank you for posting a photo of yourself next to your hives. Hilarious. I don't know whether you were posting to impress other beekeepers with the height of your super stacks, but it has to go into the same category as photos of men holding large carp, or standing next to an oversized motorhome.

Thankyou for that.....it really made me smile and set me up for the day, in fact it raised a guffaw.
I see you've been on the forum for five years so you should know that we post pictures of that sort of stuff quite frequently. Strangely, despite the name I'm a five foot two slight lady who has never been carp fishing though I must admit I have been trawling for the odd Grayling recently and I do have a motorhome though not oversized.
The picture was to illustrate that despite getting CBPV a colony can recover to great things.

 

[Erichalfbee]

This is the latest report from my contact


I will tell you more in the next couple of days, but the weaker hive had just dead drones under...and only about ten. Two weeks ago, I took apart the stronger hive with no mortality. Last week I properly inspected again but realised that by using smoke many bees are forces down into the enclosed stand. They are still doing well, n
But potentially an issue if you still have mortality to force them down to infected bees. My strategy of minimum disturbance - inspect once per fortnight, but monitor by lifting off boxes is a must. This may be a down side of my boxed stands, and with wasps yet to arrive en mass and fairly isolated, they probably would have been fine, but it ma be that it is extra protection at this time of year, or if they were closer to other colonies. I need to go through the weaker colony properly tomorrow, so will lift the brood boxes away before smoking. Overall, the idea of removing the floor has been a huge success.

The idea for the next time if there ever is one is to have a removable tray on the ground which can be slid out to collect dead and dying bees

As an update....to precis what Bryan sent me.
He removed the floor on 7th June and mortality continued for 10 days and up to now a month later they have filled a super. The no-floor is still in place but will be rectified shortly.
The essence is to recognise the problem quickly and act fast. Another disease to battle but at least now we seem to have an effective strategy.
I have some old Paynes supers that were going to the tip so my plan is to rig up some sort of "super stand" rather than block the aree off under the stand so that I am prepared should this ever recur.

 

[KittyB]

Thankyou for that.....it really made me smile and set me up for the day, in fact it raised a guffaw.
I see you've been on the forum for five years so you should know that we post pictures of that sort of stuff quite frequently. Strangely, despite the name I'm a five foot two slight lady who has never been carp fishing though I must admit I have been trawling for the odd Grayling recently and I do have a motorhome though not oversized.
The picture was to illustrate that despite getting CBPV a colony can recover to great things.

Excellent news, then we've both had a laugh, which is refreshing in these weird times. Enjoy this beautiful day and enjoy your bees.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

As an update....to precis what Bryan sent me.
He removed the floor on 7th June and mortality continued for 10 days and up to now a month later they have filled a super. The no-floor is still in place but will be rectified shortly.
The essence is to recognise the problem quickly and act fast. Another disease to battle but at least now we seem to have an effective strategy.
I have some old Paynes supers that were going to the tip so my plan is to rig up some sort of "super stand" rather than block the aree off under the stand so that I am prepared should this ever recur.

I can forsee an opportunity here (albeit somewhat limited) for a treatment hive floor. No floor mesh, an extra deep underspace box perhaps with mesh side panels for ventilation and a deep, slide out collection tray for corpse collection and removal. Long term use would risk comb building on the bottom of brood frames but for use instead of simply leaving the under brood space open to access by robbers, wasps and other invaders during the critical period could be handy to have available?

 

[Erichalfbee]

I can forsee an opportunity here (albeit somewhat limited) for a treatment hive floor. No floor mesh, an extra deep underspace box perhaps with mesh side panels for ventilation and a deep, slide out collection tray for corpse collection and removal. Long term use would risk comb building on the bottom of brood frames but for use instead of simply leaving the under brood space open to access by robbers, wasps and other invaders during the critical period could be handy to have available?

Yes opportunity for our inventive hive
mind.
Comb building might not be an issue in a sick colony?

 

[LeaBees]

As an update....to precis what Bryan sent me.
He removed the floor on 7th June and mortality continued for 10 days and up to now a month later they have filled a super. The no-floor is still in place but will be rectified shortly.
The essence is to recognise the problem quickly and act fast. Another disease to battle but at least now we seem to have an effective strategy.
I have some old Paynes supers that were going to the tip so my plan is to rig up some sort of "super stand" rather than block the aree off under the stand so that I am prepared should this ever recur.

Thanks for the update. Having moved quickly to provide a no-floor option I'm scratching head as to how to clear dead/sick bees from underneath (wishig i'd thought to integrate a removable floor). Opening the panels to sweep brings a rush of bees out. Perhaps I need to make the area underneath deeper? An empty super beneath the BBox to elevate further?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Thanks for the update. Having moved quickly to provide a no-floor option I'm scratching head as to how to clear dead/sick bees from underneath (wishig i'd thought to integrate a removable floor). Opening the panels to sweep brings a rush of bees out. Perhaps I need to make the area underneath deeper? An empty super beneath the BBox to elevate further?

Yes try the super.
you don’t have to clear the bees every day. I doubt the house bees venture down there at all.

 

[LeaBees]

Yes try the super.
you don’t have to clear the bees every day. I doubt the house bees venture down there at all.

Will try the super then leave them be for a while. I imagine it is ok to remove capped frames/supers.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Will try the super then leave them be for a while. I imagine it is ok to remove capped frames/supers.

Yes I would extract for home use. The jury is out whether you can re use the supers. I did. I threw the brood frames of the surviving split once I could get them out

 

[Firefly]

Possibly worth mentioning that some WBCs (Thornes? Of a certain age?) have removable OMF - certainly a couple of mine do

I wish this discussion had happened before I shook mine out earlier this year, as advised by a bee farmer - though they have now recovered well, btw.

I put the flare-up in my strongest colony down to the vile spring - crowded bees cooped up for weeks on end

 

[Fritillary]

I can forsee an opportunity here (albeit somewhat limited) for a treatment hive floor. No floor mesh, an extra deep underspace box perhaps with mesh side panels for ventilation and a deep, slide out collection tray for corpse collection and removal.

Yes. I'd been thinking a deep slide out collection tray as you describe would be a vg idea at least. When a colony of mine got through CBPV I really didn't like having to move them almost daily for a spell to get the dead out but it seemed the best plan. (I still have the suspicion that thymol might help and wonder if anybody has any idea whether bees who've been treated with Apiguard are less susceptible to the virus - ?)

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

You're still giving them a box with a floor to walk on. Just put the BB on an eke on a decent 12 - 18" open hive stand, put a sheet of plastic on the floor to collect the dead bees - job done

 

[user 819]

You're still giving them a box with a floor to walk on. Just put the BB on an eke on a decent 12 - 18" open hive stand, put a sheet of plastic on the floor to collect the dead bees - job done

Yes, KISS method not difficult to follow or carry out.