Almond Pollinators

[Beeslave]

How many of you have found that your bees come back with more undesirables(disease) than you bargained for. It's starting to look like I get to make a BIG bonfire. I treated with terramycin(4 treatments 5 days apart) last fall and tylan(3 treatments 7 days apart) this spring. Now that I should be concentating on extracting and supering I'm searching everything and marking for nighttime pickup trips for the burn pile! Even if I don't suspect they are sick I'm checking them anyways before I pull the honey( I've got a big enough mess now and don't want to make it worse). I'm just disgusted and wore out(900 hives most with at least 3 supers on and some with 5). I'm thinking cali bees was a big mistake. Everything was good back in may and now I am finding hives just starting to show signs of AFB. It's less than 5% and I caught it before it was out of control but all I can think is "Now is AFB becoming tylan resistant", I sure hope not.

[JohnK and Sheri]

Sorry to hear of your troubles.
After taking our bees out to California for several years we just assume they have been exposed to everything in the book and act accordingly. But it isn't only California, trouble can find you when you sit in one place also. We have a migrator from the south coming up and parking his bees right in the middle of our "territory". A couple years ago they even stopped by to purchase some AFB treatment because they brought up a bunch with them from their southern local.:eek:
Do you take your bees into cranberries? That can be pretty hard on them too.
Sheri

[Keith Jarrett]

in the middle of our "territory". Sheri

Yeah, that just chaps my hinny when that happens.

[Beeslave]

No cranberries for me. Cali to here for honey production. Should I burn pallets too or scorch them with a weed burner? I'm finding it in a hive here and there. Not hive after hive adjacent to each other. I was thinking as I go to each yard and pick up the bad I don't want to leave the empty spot exposed so was thinking of scorching before I left. I know it's dry out and will carry water tank to douse(sp?) around remaining hives on pallet. Is that over reaction or not(scorching pallet as I remove bad). Or is it safe enough to treat the sick and reduce entrance down leaving them where they are. Or remove the sick and put in "HOSPITAL" yard and treat then go through and just burn frames that have scale. 2 hives so far out of 300 have all phases of AFB and most of the other sick haven't progressed enough to have scale yet, just the start of dead brood? Any experienced help willk be appreciated as you know how expensive it can be to over react burning what doesn't need to be.

[JohnK and Sheri]

Are you seeing a continued progression or results left over from the previous disease? It surprises me that the Tylan did not clear this up.
That is all we need, Tylan resistant AFB.
Sheri

[Beeslave]

I would call it active since it is affecting new brood. Maybe I got some bad tylan( not likely). 1.5 tbls tylan mixed with 2 lbs powder sugar. Possibly(very likely) I am at fault for introducing it when I made splits with dead outs that came back from cali. I didn't see any sign of it but I had inexperienced help making splits and I didn't inspect every frame of every dead out since alot of them looked obvious they had starved from not getting fed. I won't make that mistake again. As I frequently say "learn from your mistakes".;

[LSPender]

Are you sure its AFB?, When we were losing hives a few years ago a lot of what I saw looked like AFB & EFB, but when tested it came back negative. I set these frames aside for a while ( 2 to 3 months to air out) and now they are all in full production for the past 3 years.