Results from Beltsville Lab

[Ruben]

I got back off my family vacation cruise late last night and we had a great time, we went to the Bahamas, St. Thomas and St. Maartin. These islands truely are paradise.

I checked the mail this morning and I had a letter from the research lab in Beltsville with the results of the comb I sent them just before I left for vacation.

Results were as follows:

Diagnosis: American Foulbrood

Comments: This sample was cultured and checked for sensitivity to Terramycin and Tylan. Results are susceptible to Terramycin (62mm zone of inhibition) Susceptible to Tylan

What do the comments mean? I plan to burn the hive tomorrow. My next question is the super that came off of this hive was stacked on top of five other full supers in my basement for about two days. Will the spores fall down into those other supers or are they contained into the one that was on the AFB hive? Should I burn the one or all five of the supers after extacting the honey? The surplus super I removed from the AFB hive also has a spare hive cover on top of it that I put there to keep the bees out, should it also be burned or will a fresh coat of paint do? Should I go ahead and plan on treating all colonies with Terramycin in the spring? Also I removed five queen excluders from these hives and don't know which one was on the AFB hive, should I torch them all? Last of all, what if anything should be done that I have not covered? Thanks everyone, I can always count the Beesource people to steer me in the right direction.

Ruben Showalter

[Sundance]

It means that your AFB is not resistant to
Terramycin or Tylan if you choose to try to
treat them.

A good scorching of the boxes and covers
should do.

[Joel]

Reuben, I don't know how many hives you are running but you will have to decide your tolerance for re-infection. The honey supers are infected due to spores that occur in the honey. The Goodwin/Van Eaton Study out of New Zealand, the standard for foulbrood, indicates "Wet" honey supers from infecected hives are one of the fastest ways to to spread the disease. All the combs and frames should be destroyed. Scorching boxes if it is done properly will kill spores as will hot parafin dipping.

You don't say what type of excluders you are using but either plastic or metal, once all comb is removed by steeping can be sterilized using a 5% hypochloride (bleach) and water solution for at least 20 minutes. I would stronly encourage you to see if you can locate an out of print copy of the New Zealand Study or visit the website which has considerable information. Do a search on Mark Goodwin or Cliff Van Eaton.

Since it cost about $300.00 to replace a new hive and bees, if you are running a few, I'd burn it all and let God sort it out, we do.

Mark B. (sqkcrk) was a NY inspector for years and is here somewhere, Hopefully he'll add more.

[Aspera]

The size of the ring of inhibition is related to the degree of susceptibility. Although treatment and disinfection is still an option for you, Joel has outlined the only way to be sure....

[Ruben]

Hi Joel, I plan on burning everything that was on this AFB hive. What I was wondering was should I also burn the six supers that came from other hives in that yard because I set the infected super on top of them?

The queen excluders are metal and framed in wood. There are eight other hives in this yard that I saw no problem with. I bought the eight hives from a friend who has health problems and is unable to work them. This was the first time I had opened them. He has never had AFB before and was shocked when we got the results back. I should also metion that this colony has plastic boxed not wooden, most of the others are wooden.

Also I planned to make make the set up on Michael Bushes website for straining honey with two five gallon buckets. Should they be thrown away after use? What is done with the wax after crush and straining? How about the concrete in my basement where the supers are setting, will my basement be contaminated for fifty years? Lots of questions!

[Joel]

Reuben, the only concern is the equipment from the infected hive. No concerns about the basement floor or the equipment for crush and strain. That can all be cleaned post harvest and won't spread disease to other equipment. It is important to make certain none of the exposed equipment/honey is left anywhere it can be accessed by bees for robbing on a warm day and that none of the honey gets fed back to the bees. Use your wax to make some nice candles and don't worry too much about that vector.

The other item that comes to mind is was the infected hive still strong at the end of the season? If it was weakened by the disease it will be important to observe the other hives closely for infection next year as robbing of AFB hives is a prime vector. Also consider that there may be a well of infection nearby that initated this encounter that may also infect colonies next year. If you found the problem early and isolated the hive chances are you won't see infection in the other hives.

In most areas AFB is part of the whole picture so don't over stress about it. Enjoy your craft, be vigilant and revel in the encounter and conquering of just one of many beekeeping hurdles.

By the way, are you going to tell us more about your cruise?

[ October 22, 2006, 07:22 PM: Message edited by: Joel ]

[Ruben]

>the only concern is the equipment from the infected hive. No concerns about the basement floor or the equipment for crush and strain


Will the spores have fallen down through the other supers that I stacked under the super from the infected hive? See I pulled the honey off of the hives and took it home and stacked the supers in my basemant. My friend who has all the experience was out of town when I did it and I had read and heard that Goldenrod Honey smells bad so when I opened this hive and smelled the rank smell and being my first year I just figured it was the Goldenrod that was smelling so bad. It was not until later that night that I got home and was looking in one of my bee books that I found some signs of AFB and went back the next day did I start to suspect a problem. So the super that was on the AFB colony was stacked on the top of five other full supers for 24 hours. So I was wondering if the spores would fall down thrugh the frames of the non-contaminated supers below and infest them.

[Fuzzy]

Does anyone know if the U.S. postal service is still mass X-raying to kill bio-hazzards ?
If so, with some strategic packing, you could mail your hive equipment to someone (insuring that they go through a major mail center) and let the postal service sterilize them for you.

The equipment is good enough for anthrax it should be good enough for foul brood.

[tecumseh]

fuzzy sezs:


tecumseh ask:
this must be something besides x ray, more than likely irradiation?

[Ardilla]

The majority of major postal facilities never were irradiating the mail. All the major processing and distribution facilities have biohazard detection system (BDS) and ventilation filtration systems (VFS) both of these are detection systems only. I believe only NYC, Wash. D.C., and maybe a couple other facilities were irradiating mail and I'm not sure if they continued after BDS & VFS installation. I did consulting to USPS for a year for the BDS roll-out and visited a dozen or so major facilities - never saw any irradiation equipment. Early detection and response is just more practical than trying to sanitize the mail stream...

[ October 23, 2006, 01:03 PM: Message edited by: Ardilla ]

[Aspera]

Usually some sort of gamma emmitter such as cobalt 60 is used. Certain types of x-rays and lipid heating microwaves may also work with food products.

[Mike Gillmore]

> Will the spores have fallen down through the other supers that I stacked under the super from the infected hive?

I'm no expert on this, but I would err on the side of caution. Extract all of the honey in the supers, burn all of the frames, and scorch the boxes. That will only set you back about $100 or so for new frames and foundation for the six supers.... but you will not be worrying about contaminating any additional hives... how much are they worth compared to new frames?

[sqkcrk]

Ruben, "Zone of Inhibition" refers to how close the AFB in the peatry(how do you spell that anyway?) dish is to the Terramycin or the Tylan.

The way that I understand it, a culture from your comb sample is grown in the p. dish and then the tylan or terra. is applied. The AFB will then "die back" (my term) a certain distance or not. This is the zone of inhibition. The closer to to the antibiotic the higher the level of resistance to that antibiotic. I don't have the numbers memorized.

I. Barton Smith is real easy to talk to. He's willing to answer questions. Give him a call at the Bee Lab.

Continue with your plans and burn that stuff. Then you'll be sure it's gone.

Lots of folks like to play around with AFB, trying to "cure" it. I don't recommend doing that.

[sqkcrk]

Good idea, Fuzzy. An even better chuckle. But remember, Ruben mailed his sample to Beltsville, MD. So it went through a small number of P.O.s and was still in good enough shape to test positive for AFB.

[drobbins]

Mark,

do you know anything about the gas chambers they use to sterilize equipment?
They have one here in NC and I think it handles AFB
I think it uses ethyl bromide or something along those lines {I'm sure the name is wrong but it's close)
not sure if it would be worth the road trip for Ruben

Dave

[Aspera]

Gas chambers are usually ethylene oxide but can also be plasma generators. These will not be as effective as irradiation or well performed scorching according to published results. Steam autoclaving would also work, but unfortunately requires temperatures above the flashpoint for wax (121 C). This makes me reluctant to try it. Given that boxes are only $10 each, I'm not even sure that it is worthwhile to try scorching them. You might want to just burn the whole kit and kabooddle. I think the Aussie's have had good luck with hot paraffin soaking.

[mobees]

I spoke to a local Bee Inspector and he said he would be worried about all the hives in the same yard do to robbing and would recommend destroying the infected hive and going through every hive in the yard, and use an extender patty in each of the hives in the same yard this fall and
monitor closely next spring, when spring brooding begins. Your honey is likely contaminated and should not be feed back or used for winter stores.

I guess you have to be thankful it's not developed in more and assume spores could be in others.

[kc in wv]

Ruben
I had the AFB in a hive this spring. It was recommended by our apiary dept to treat with tylan. If I had it to do over again I think I would have extracted the honey, Made candles from the wax and burned the frames. The boxes are out of service until I can run them through our states apairy dept autoclave

By time I got the Tylan it cost me near $60.00 and I still have enough expired tylan to treat 132 hives for AFB.

I have been posting about the treatment process I did over on the pest and disease board

[mwjohnson]

Hey Ruben,
I think you can read the New Zealand Beekeepers Association book "control of american foulbrood without the use of chemicals" that Joel mentioned online at Cornell's Smith Library,but check the NZBA webbsite because there is a newer edition in the works,and it's a great site anyhow.
I got a librarian friend to photocopy it for me.

Sorry for your loss.

[NW IN Beekeeper]

Do you have a link for:

Control of AFB without the use of chems @ Cornell's Smith Library?

I am aware of Phillips Collection in Mann, but I can not find the Smith Collection.

Thanks

JEFF

[mwjohnson]

Jeff,
I guess I should have said I "think" it's called the Smith library...I loaned my copy to a friend,the original was clearly stamped on some of the pages with(again I "think")Smith library.It will be a few day's until I can check that out for sure.
I may have misspoke...if so I apologize,lesson learned. redface.gif

And,in a preemptive move let me say that the ability to read the stuff at Cornell was told to me by a friend,haven't tried it personally,again,I tried to qualify that with "I think".

BUT,the NZBA site is real good,like Joel said.
I finally downloaded/printed all 127 pages of their "control of varroa",great stuff there.

BTW,I'm computer savyless.

[Aspera]

Tylan is preferable to tetracyclines for use in extender patties. This is only my opinion, but it is based on the fact that Tylan is more stable under moist, warm conditions, such as those found in the hive. Also, Tylan is not absorbed through the human gut, and this antibiotic is never used in hospitals. This means that it is 1) chemically harmless and 2) a little less likely to select for resistant human diseases. Some would argue that the short hive-life of terramycin is a good thing, but I think it just strongly selects for resistance (primarily through extender patties and infrequently changed syrup). Dusting weekly for 3-4 weeks should also work very well, and does not require leaving large amounts of terramycin in the hive for long periods. Just my 2 cents.

[ October 26, 2006, 07:18 AM: Message edited by: Aspera ]

[Ruben]

>Some would argue that the short hive-life of terramycin is a good thing


Does Terramycin shorten a colonies life?

[Aspera]

Both antibiotics will extend the lifespan of young bees. The main concern is that these compounds will select resistant bacteria and probably enter the food chain.

[sqkcrk]

drobbins, yup. Ethylene oxide fumigation used to be popular until the carcinogenic propertys became known. Mostly they aren't used anymore, I believe.

Tylan breaks down slower than terramycin. Commercial honey packers will reject it, if found.

"extend the lifespan of young bees"?

Do you mean the larvae?

How, exactly, does an antibiotic work? What does it effect and how?

[Aspera]

Do you mean the larvae?

How, exactly, does an antibiotic work? What does it effect and how?


Yes, the larvae are more susceptable to bacteria which do not reproduce in the prescence of adequate amounts of antibiotic. This applies for EFB, for which antibiotics are curative. Their is also evidence of varroa/viral/bacterial interactions creating a triple hit. Both antibiotics and hygienic behavior were first used against AFB, and have both been found to reduce the severity of disease caused by varroa. In my mind this makes hygienic bees a very good alternative to regular antibiotic use. I don't remember who said it, but someone commented that ALL brood diseases should be blamed on the queen. This seems more or less accurate to me. I geuss the beekeeper and the drones should take some of the blame for varroa....