More questions

[Ruben]

Question #1 I bought some substituie pollen patties, when do I put those on, after they have brood or when?

At the end of last summer I got some hives from a friend who was unable to take care of them due to his health. He had not been in them in two months and one had American Foulbrood which I burned. When a sample of that hive was sent to Beltsville to confirm AFB they sent me a letter back that said they had tested the sample with Tylan and Terramycin and found both to have a 0% effect on that strain of AFB spore.

Question #2 Does that mean that if I were to treat the other hives in that yard with Terramycin as a precaution it would have no affect on them if they had robbed the infected hive?

My goal is to end up with all small cell and use no chemicals, but I thought about using Terramycin due to AFB being in that yard, there are seven other hives in that yard.

Question #3 If I should use the Terramycin, how and when do I apply it?

My friend said in the 15 years he had been keeping bees he had never seen AFB before, this was the first.

Question #4 Is AFB very common and if you have had it was it an isolated incedent or a plague?

I should also add that the two supers that were on the hive were totally full of honey so any robbing was probably minimal, I think I caught it before the robbing.


Thanks for your teachings smile.gif

[Mike Gillmore]

>> Question #1 I bought some substituie pollen patties, when do I put those on, after they have brood or when?

Check with the locals. You want to put it on to help jump start early brood rearing, but not too early, or you could end up with a booming hive too early in the spring.

>> Question #2 Does that mean that if I were to treat the other hives in that yard with Terramycin as a precaution it would have no affect on them if they had robbed the infected hive?

Very likely.

>> Question #3 If I should use the Terramycin, how and when do I apply it?

I would not use it at all. If you treat your hives and it happens to be effective, you won't really know if they are infected or not. It will be masking the symptoms. Then later when you stop treating they could all crash with AFB.

>> Question #4 Is AFB very common and if you have had it was it an isolated incedent or a plague?

It is not "common" in my area, but there are always apiaries that are turning up positive with AFB. Most of them are the stubborn beeks that refuse to take appropriate action and they keep seeing it reoccur year after year.