View Full Version : Borrod Disease I do not recogtnize....Please Help!
Hi Most excellent folks at Beesource...
This is Ruby from California with some Top Bar Hives.
Today we did a round of harvesting and one of my hives has some kind of brood disease I don't recognise.
There was no foul smell and the few uncapped larvae looked like they had melted. Still white, but very gooey.
I have Michael Bush's Disease article and read through it looking for a match, but didn't find anything.
If anyone has any suggestions I'd appreciate it--
I was planning on breaking the brood cycle and requeening...as that seems to be one of the more natural ways to deal with these brood diseases--prefer not to go to chemicals...but please tell me if I should just get rid of the entire hive and start over or what?
The population was low, though not uncharacteristically for this time of year and there was very little uncapped brood.
I did not find the queen, but didn't look very hard, since I was with a group of people and we were trying to get to everyone's hive this afternoon.
I will take anopther look tomorrow, so hoping to get some information on what to look fir before then.
Thank you in advance!
Ruby
Sorry for the typo argh!
That would be Brood Disease.
Thanks, Ruby
Michael Bush
10-08-2006, 07:15 PM
This time of year it's likely to just be abandoned brood because they didn't want more mouths to feed. Where are you located? What kind of climate?
Generally if it IS brood disease you're looking for when the larvae died (before or after capping) and, if after, for ropiness and scale, which would indicate AFB. Also look for mummies (like chalkbrood) or a dead larvae in a sac, like sacbrood.
If you really think you HAVE a brood disease, you can send a sample to Beltsville and they will give you a definitive diagnosis.
http://www.ba.ars.usda.gov/psi/brl/directs.htm
My guess is you just have some brood that is abandoned this time of year.
hi Michael (et all),
I am in California andthe weather is still fine, though we do generally experience a p[retty arpid population decline around this time of year.
Definitely looks like larvae died before capping, though I didn't see any good uncapped larvae anywhere--just these few scatteredd ones that looked gooey and melted, but white--not discolored. very strange because we went to three different hives in the same neighborhood today and they were alll really different. I had very little brood and lots of hioney and the others had lots and lots of capped and uncpped brood and very little honey.
My hive had many brood bars that were nearly empty--will go all the way to the front tomoroow and see if I can find the queen...perhaps they abandonned the larvae because too few bees to do the work because of lack of queen....?
Can't know that til tomorrow.
Definitely did not look like Chalkbrrod--I have seen that before and did not smell like FoulBrood, I have smelled that before....
So I hoep it is s you say...abandonned brood.
Would they get all melty looking like tht if care was ceased?
Ruby
mobees
10-08-2006, 10:59 PM
Hi Ruby
Your probably starting to get some robbing. You
probably want to findout real Quick like nextday Air
UPS to Beltsville. I know my few Italians are little robbing machines this time of year!
tecumseh
10-09-2006, 04:47 AM
ruby sezs:
I am in California andthe weather is still fine
tecumseh suggest:
california is a fairly large and geographically diverse state. is that north, south, east or west????
just askin' and wishin' ya' well....
odfrank
10-09-2006, 04:59 AM
I am seeing same thing in San Mateo. Lots of abandoned capped brood and milky dead larvaes, both on SC hives. I thought maybe mite population depradation. Good fall flow going, best hives have filled a medium since wets were put back on a month or so back. No robbing problems. Not a climate problem.
Michael Bush
10-09-2006, 05:11 AM
>perhaps they abandonned the larvae because too few bees to do the work because of lack of queen....?
Usually if you're queenless there isn't that much brood to care for. But then if you're queenless the bees tend to drift to other hives a lot and leave tha hive with much fewer bees than the lack of brood would cause.
I suppose they could have been queenless a short time and ended up with too few bees to care for the brood because of drifting.
naturebee
10-09-2006, 07:43 AM
--Definitely looks like larvae died before capping, though I didn't see any good uncapped larvae anywhere--just these few scatteredd ones that looked gooey and melted, but white--not discolored. ,,,Still white, but very gooey
Yall who answered better brush up on your bee diseases! smile.gif
Sure sounds like early stage EFB to me.
Outside chance of sac brood, "maybe".
odfrank
10-09-2006, 08:29 PM
does termycin cure efb?
George Fergusson
10-10-2006, 03:51 AM
>does termycin cure efb?
It is used to treat it. Whether it cures it or not and how long it takes depends on the severity of the infection I suppose. It's recommended that you remove and burn severely infected combs and clean your hive tool so as not to spread it to other hives. Requeening is also recommended as it appears there is a genetic susceptability to EFB. Here in Maine, EFB is primarily restricted to the Blueberry belt for some reason.