You don't make friends with Nosema!

[Halfuncial]

It was a good Christmas... Not as good as it would have been if one of my two hives hadn't kicked the bucket!
My wife and are are new to beekeeping and this was our first first winter. One of our hives was a good strong sort. The other had been on the weak side and going into winter I remarked to my wife that I would be suprised if it made it through to spring.
Just before Christmas I went in to put some fondant on only to discover a hive with no bees alive. There were plenty of bees in there but they were all dead. I found it odd that they seemed to have died in four or five tennis ball sized clusters within the frames.
I was actually on my way out of town the next morning so I moved the hive away from the other hive, up to the house and used an old paint brush to 'sweep' the hive clean, taking the frames out and brushing off the dead bees into a bucket. I then sealed up the entrance and left.

Most disturbing is the fact that the hive appears to have suffered from a case of nosema. There are brown stains on the tops of the frames and a few on the inside of the boxes. The crown board too has brown gloopy staining. The frames are in perfect condition and there is a fair amount of honey sealed up. I had hefted the hive a week or so before my discovery and was reassured that there were plenty of stores. How wrong I was.

So now I need to get that hive sorted and cleaned out to repopulate this coming spring. My question (at last) is how do I clean it up? I would guess that a blowtourch and a scraper will clean the boxes and the rest of the structure but is there anything that can be done with all the frames? I read some time ago that you can extract the honey and then heat to a specific temp to kill the spores and after that the honey is good to go. Given all of the full comb and also so much drawn, empty comb I wondered if could could treat with some thing (formic acid) and then use the frames again. Worst case I can always use the wax for candles. I'm just hhoping that I can rescume the frames and wax if at all possible.

The good news is that the other coloney is well and very strong. Lots of them flying just today.

Its regrttable that my first post must be a request for help with a malady but needs must.

Regards

Derek

 

[Hombre]

Hi Derek, sorry for the loss of your colony. I take it that it was the weaker one of the two that succumbed?

A boat load of replies will doubtless follow that will exhort you to burn just about everything and suggest that you have a catastrophic case of something really nasty.

I don't know why, but the fact that the bees were in separate clusters perhaps indicated that they had been caught out by the cold and not being in a single cluster, they may have just not had sufficient mass to effectively keep warm and alive. Whether it suggests that they may have lost their queen or not is another theory for their being fragmented as you describe. If heads were deep in the comb or tongues out, then the suggestion is that starvation could be the cause.

Another theory is that they may have been weakened by varroa damage. I am assuming that you treated with Apiguard or similar thymol product in the Autumn?

When you fed syrup in the Autumn, did you make it with a thymol tincture as recommended by Hivemaker? This is of some benefit in the fight against nosema as thymol has strong anti bacterial properties.

Personally, I would wait until your colony/colonies are getting stronger, probably some time from mid March, and then gradually swap in the frames from the dead box, to let the bees clean them up. Use your judgement here, as you don't want to remove stores and replace with empty frames and neither do you want to be removing brood frames or eggs.

Make up a light syrup solution and treat with thymol tincture and lightly spray it upon the frames that you take from the deadout. This will assist in mitigating any bacterial spores kicking about and the syrup will make it attractive to the bees although it isn't necessary.

A strong colony will clean the frames up just fine. The removed comb from the hives can be used when you require drawn comb when you come to do your swarm management splits, confident that it's good and wholesome.

Good luck. The other advisors will be along in the morning . . .

 

[Halfuncial]

nosema bees

Thanks Hombre,

We had a suspicion that the queen was in trouble but repeated inspections in the autumn showed helthy brood and a strong laying pattern so we kept reassuring ourselves that all was right with the world. Maybe half a dozen heads deep in comb. No tonges out, I checked.

Deffinate verroa issues though nothing terrible. Just a slightly high drop. Treated with apiguard in the autumn. Didn't add thymol to feed. Haven't heard of that before but will try that in the future.

You suggest that I swap in the frames but you didn't recommend a cleaning method. Should I then assume that the thymol syrup will knock out enough of the bacteria to make them usable?

I very much appreciate the measured and non alarmist response. I'll cancel the order for the C4 in the morning.

 

[mbc]

if you want to sterilise the frames then 80% acetic acid is recommended. Seal up the box, smear vasaline on any metal parts and put 100ml ish of the acid in a dish on top of the frames - use an eak to accomodate the dish. Close up the top remembering to close any vents in the roof.
I think this is whats advised as "best practice".
Thers advice on the beebase website regarding cleaning up deadouts : https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/index.cfm?pageid=167

 

[Halfuncial]

Thanks mbc, I did see that guide and you're correct, they do recommend acetic acid. I happened to speak to someone this afternoon though who has a Cobalt 60 Source! From my NDT days I remember c60 to be a great source of gamma radiation. Befor going down the acid route I'm going to go and see him with a brood box to see if it will run through his gamma kit and see how much it would cost. It would be a very quick and painless way to clean them up!

Thank you for your comments though. I'll consider them 'plan B' until I find out about this other route.

 

[drstitson]

cobalt 60

hi halfuncial

sorry about your loss.

re the gamma source. if you look at irradiated pollen thread you will see that many of us are interested in a reliable means of irradiating pollen.

if you can find out cost and size constraints from your mate that'd be great.

 

[oliver90owner]

re the gamma source.

There is a link to a specific company on this link. Remove and replace dots with dots for it to work.

wwwdotmodernbeekeepingdotcodotuk/graphics/cms/Fera%20-%20Hive_Cleaning_and_Sterilisation[1]dotpdf

Regards, RAB

 

[Storm™]

hi halfuncial

sorry about your loss.

re the gamma source. if you look at irradiated pollen thread you will see that many of us are interested in a reliable means of irradiating pollen.

if you can find out cost and size constraints from your mate that'd be great.

I would have thought you out of all of us would have the easiest rout to help yourself.

X-Ray dept. Can I leave this in here for the day lol

Nuclear medicine - hello chaps where is your source safe etc. . .

Unless your a Dr of another flavour.

 

[Halfuncial]

Well, the very nice chap with the gamma source has agreed to zap my kit for me so thats a very good deal indeed. i'm not sure about pollen working with this because he has a lower exposure limit of of 25kGy. Thats the recommended dose for killing AFB. I will be talking to him in a day or two and I'll ask about the pollen but I'd have to say that if it needs to receive a lower dose then it would need a much smaller source. I believe there is a company in Swindon who have a micro source which could run down a way from 25. There may not bee too much of an issue with an overdose in which case it might work out. I'll get some pricing and report back to the thread you mentioned.
Very cool that i don't have to worry about the hive and frames being a liability to my bees though.
Cheers

 

[Halfuncial]

OK, All done.
My kit was zapped with 32kGy over hte weekend and is now awaiting reuse with a new load of bees in the spring. There was a bit of an issue with the size of a National brood box. It was a bit big for the machine so special arrangements were made. I am told that the only guys with kit large enough to routinely take nat brood boxes is a company called Isotron in Swindon. This is the same facility that have microdose so that they can give very small exposures of gamma for lighter applications.
Isotron in Swindon say that they have handled hives in the past and that they charge £25 a "tote". They reckon that a tote can handle two boxes (didnt say if they were brood boxes or supers) and they have a minimum order of £145 Not cheap if you only have a couple of boxes but ideal if you had a few hives come down with something nasty. Isotrons number is 08456 889977.
The guy who helped me out can't really handle hives on a production basis which is a shame. Its a pity Isotron have that minimum order because they could be a very useful resource for £25 for two boxes.

 

[Hombre]

For the rest of us, there's thymol.

And acetic acid for the more aggressive option.

You should have filled your box up with pollen while your were about it Halfuncial. You could then have put a lot of fellow beeks out of their misery in their quest for a source of irradiated pollen in the UK.
Well done.