Background, I was told by My SBI that the beefarmers had a way of dealing with CBPV when she diagnosed it in one hive so I asked the question on the BF section this was the resulting thread.
Me
What is the way the BFA suggests beekeepers deal with this little problem.
I have a hive that has it, not really bad but will get worse if its not dealt with now. Also I don't want it going in other hives.
Hivemaker
Chrisfnvs wrote an interesting article in our recent BFA magazine about a way he has been dealing with the problem, basically involves shaking the bees out some distance from the hive so that only the flying bees return, a similar method was also mentioned a few months ago in a conversation I had with Dave Hanneman. The only success I've had is by a similar method and to make sure they have plenty of protein by way of pollen, and re queen with a less susceptible strain. The virus is also transmitted via feces from the queen, and workers, and saving the queen from one of these colonies and introducing her to another can be like introducing a typhoid Mary.
Chrisfvns
Yes David was giving a talk on the subject so i sent him an early copy of my method, i must stress that to be successful with this method you should swing the frames up and tap off the bees in an upward motion to get them flying, to shake them onto the floor would be counter productive, we have not found any problem using the original Queens, but one reinfection could be explained by this, having said that this colony went on to be one of our best Honey producers that season after a repeat use of our method. The Bee unit suggested that Buckfast`s show a tolerance to CBPV sadly this is not the case as i have had both Carny`s and Buckfast`s go down with it, the only common detonator is the size of the colonies, having large colonies combined with inclement weather around end of May beginning of June is when you get a problem, i have seen the early signs in a colony already on a previously unaffected site, just two workers that looked different, more colour than the rest, and a little polished so i expect it will rear it ugly head again this year.
Me
In tapping up to fly back does this help the house bees onto the wing so they are able to make it back? Also what distance do you shake off from? Do you remove brood frames also ie onto fresh comb?
Chrisfnvs
you are attempting to separate every infected bee form the uninfected ones Doug, as the infected ones loose the ability to fly and will drop like stones to the ground, the others will fly back home, as the virus is passed mostly from bee to bee contact, the brood in the combs will be unaffected so they go back into the colony as can the stores, we first find and cage the queen and place her some where safe then we move each box from that colony about 50 yards or so, carefully tip out all the frames from each box onto the ground, best done by losing the frames first, maybe take out one or both of the outside frames and tipping the box upside down and very carefully sliding the box off of the frames, as you don`t want to crush or knock too many bees against each other, replace the boxes onto the original stand and floor after a quick run round with a blow torch, alternately and better still if you are using a new box just take out each frame from the old box one at a time. Starting with the Brood box, remove every bee from each frame by the method mentioned before and replace in it correct position within that box, when the last Brood frame is back in position you can release the queen, repeat the process for any additional boxes/supers
Me
thanks for that Chris it makes sense.
How soon would you do it? the Bee inspector saw maybe 5 or 10 bees with it in a colony which is also a nice strong one?
I'm thinking to put a new brood box on the site with all new frames bar 1 to keep the queen on, then QX and old brood ontop to clear it out then to feed for a week or so for them to build new comb.
does this sound a plan to you?
Chrisfnvs
I would really only use our method as a last resort as it dose cause the colony a lot of stress and upheaval, i don`t think it is worth putting them through all that for only a few infected workers, i would pick them of by hand for now and see how they cope with it, CPBV really peaks around late May early June so this is the time we have used our method, as i mentioned before the brood and stores are unaffected, so unless you have another reason for changing the brood comb i would just put it back into the box it came from, you don`t want to give them too much work to do if you want to take a crop off them this year, we have taken a good crop off most of ours after preforming our method, so it can be done.
the sad thing was the owner on my site decided petrol was the best answer so was unable to test the effectiveness.
