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Prevalence of CCD in untreated colonies

13K views 59 replies 23 participants last post by  sqkcrk 
#1 ·
Curious to hear from folks that keep bees that are not in areas exposed to overt amounts of pesticides and DO NOT treat their bees with chemicals.

Are you seeing incidents that fit the description associated with CCD or not? If so what sort of rate?
 
#2 ·
I don't treat and the really big commerical beek I work for does. Neither of us are seeing CCD in this area. But then again we are not running bees on crops that would be using the nio nicotoids so that may be something. I have heard that in ND and SD those running on Sunflowers that have the new nio nicotoids in the seed are showing huge losses. Got to be something to it wouldn't you say?
 
#7 ·
Talk to Tom L. who is on bee source about what happened to his 400 hives on sunflowers this year. Additionally, talk to Lyle Johnson who runs about 40,000 bees on almonds about the number of loses that came from SD and ND. He graded them and can tell you first hand. Unfortunately, my bees were not on sunflowers so I didn't experience these losses. However, since my information is second hand as related to me by those who actually dealt with it and therefore not preferable, you now can contact them for "first hand" feedback.
 
#4 ·
Re: Incidence of CCD and Untreated Colonies

I am confused. From my experiences with CCD, Pesticides and miticides have no correlation with frequency of CCD. I do not used miticides, and have seen no evidence of pesticide problems. I have seen CCD kill everything. The solution was new bees in new equipment.

Roland
 
#5 ·
Re: Incidence of CCD and Untreated Colonies

I am wondering how seriously unconfirmed reports of "CCD" can be taken. We have seen many such reports, which, on further examination, seem more likely to have been caused by the usual suspects, mites and nosema.

Additionally, wouldn't the survey have to include those who DO treat with chemicals and haven't experienced CCD?
Sheri
 
#14 ·
Re: Incidence of CCD and Untreated Colonies

Additionally, wouldn't the survey have to include those who DO treat with chemicals and haven't experienced CCD?
Sheri
Sure, Why not.

I guess what I was looking for was correlation of lack of CCD reports from folks that do not use chemicals and hence have colonies where there is not a high concentration of these same chemicals that are known to accumulate in comb.

If there are folks that use chems and do not see CCD like symptoms I would appreciate it if you also volunteer what chems/treatments you've used on that comb....its likely not a single chemical but a combination that exacerbates/causes issues.

I'm fairly confident that as this issue is looked at by others down the road in a scientific fashion that we're going to find that CCD is likely caused by some combination of chemicals/disease and that it may even be partially/completely self inflicted.
 
#6 ·
I do not treat and have over 50% loses. I posted videos of huge die offs during cold and wet weather, Nov - Jan and I still see an excess of dying bees. Didn't seem like mites to me.
 
#8 ·
Cats out of the Bag

Here I am. Sheri, tell me how it's all my fault I would like to hear it.

Semi to ND, #1 bees, low to no mites. After check, same for nosema. Virtually 100% loss. 80+ lbs surplus honey. I've been sprayed so many times i can't remember them all but never seen anything like this, but I guess if SOMEONE says it's not ccd I get no help. Nothing new there.
 
#13 ·
Re: Cats out of the Bag

Semi to ND, #1 bees, low to no mites. After check, same for nosema. Virtually 100% loss. 80+ lbs surplus honey. I've been sprayed so many times i can't remember them all but never seen anything like this
Tom, do you treat prophylactically or are you avoiding chems?

Do you have any idea what you were sprayed with and if you've ever been hit with it before?

What were your bees working? Was is primarily a single crop or multiple good sources to work?
 
#18 · (Edited)
I've never heard anyone make a correlation between CCD and Nosema before.
SEE:

This is the first case report of honeybee colony collapse due to N. ceranae in professional apiaries in field conditions reported worldwide. No other significant pathogens or pesticides (neonicotinoids) were detected and the bees had not been foraging in corn or sunflower crops. The treatment with fumagillin avoided the loss of surviving weak colonies.

"Honeybee colony collapse due to Nosema ceranae in professional apiaries" Mariano Higes Environmental Microbiology Reports (2009)
ALSO, back in 2007:

A higher virulence of N. ceranae, if conclusively demonstrated to be the case, could account for the unusual reported course of nosema disease in central and southern Europe over the last few years, in which nosema disease is a year-round phenomenon rather than a spring disease, and is associated with higher colony losses (Hatjina and Haristos, 2005; Higes et al., 2005; Imdorf et al., 2006). Colony level infection experiments in the field are now required to demonstrate a causal link between N. ceranae infection and colony collapse.

Nosema ceranae has infected Apis mellifera in Europe since at least 1998 and may be more virulent than Nosema apis
Robert J. Paxton Apidologie 38 (2007) 558–565 Available online
 
#21 ·
Ok, you asked...

I've been keeping bees since the early 70's when I bought my first bees and equipment from the Sears catalog. Then Varroa came in the 80's and nothing, including Apistan, seemed to work, everything died.

What inspired me to return to beekeeping is that I quite literally walked away from my apiary back in the 80's. I piled all the dead hives into a big mound of equipment and abandoned it all in a field on some family property. It sat there through the 90's until one day I decided to burn the pile. That's when I noticed that feral bees had moved into the rotting hive bodies and were thriving. My first thought was, maybe I was the problem because the bees seem to be doing okay by themselves, so I thought I'd give it another try.

My thought process on the topic is that I know NOTHING about beekeeping, For the past couple years I've started to locate and read beekeeping books and publications which pre-date 1900. I've noticed we beekeepers keep reinventing the wheel. For example, there is an article in the Feb 09 issue of Bee Culture magazine about a new idea of weighing colonies to map growth. Guess what? That new idea was first posted in the Oct 1 1899 issue of Bee Culture magazine. I also ask lots of questions I think I know the answers to. The 101 area is my favorite place here on bee source. Doing so has resulted in changing how I view beekeeping. I just assume everything I know is wrong because it typically is. I've also come to believe that many of the "experts" have it wrong too.
 
#22 ·
I've been keeping bees since the early 70's when I bought my first bees and equipment from the Sears catalog. Then Varroa came in the 80's and nothing, including Apistan, seemed to work, everything died.
OK, then. You and I are on the same page! It's just that yesterday I attended a talk given by Larry Connor and he said there are always people who get bees and after one year, they are the experts.

That isn't you, and that isn't me. We have had bees for decades and we know less now than we did then ;)
 
#24 ·
Od I have seen what you are seeing more than once. I associate it with some level of mite infestation, not necessarily a heavy one. There is more to it than just the effects of the mites themselves. Researchers have been telling us to treat only when mite levels reach an impact level so as to avoid overuse of materials. But Late July / early August clean up seems to be critical to overwinter success.
 
#32 ·
"There is more to it than just the effects of the mites themselves."

In the middle and end of July I made 16 divides, 5 frame nucs. 5 Velbert, 5 Purvis Italian, 6 Koehnen Italian. Two Koehnens were from a small cell hive. The mother hives were strong and thriving. The nucs got the brood rearing break. I don't think I spotted a mite during my efforts. They died the identical deaths and also at the 50% rate of undisturbed hives. I agree, it is not the mite themselves, but something possibly associated with them. I see DWV throughout the fall and winter and suspect the mass did off is IAPV or similar.
 
#25 ·
I have been in this crazy business for over 30 plus years now.
And yes I guess I am some what of an expert after all this time.
I feel I know less this year than I did last year at this time as to the bee keeping problems we are now having.
So I guess this makes me a expert at what I will probably never know!
Hope Allen Dick can come up with ideas in his testing in the next few weeks.
I saved some frames of honey from CCD dead outs.
Left these frames out to be robbed out by the bees last spring.
There was no flow on or very little of one.
Bees would rob extracted comb, drip boards & what not but wanted nothing to do with frames from these dead outs.
I must add that most of the frames left out to be robbed were new that last spring or only one year old at best.
Made a number of phone calls in an effort to find a lab to test this suposed CCD honey.
Seems no one is set up to do this type of work.
We lost over 65% of the outfit 3 winters ago.
Good thing we don't need borrow money to operate or who knows if we would still be in the bee business.
The crazy thing my son found was that not all of the operation seem to be affected that year.
But the following year the yards that wintered just fine the year before we hit but good as they dropped out as bad as the yards that had problems the year previous.
Back to the CCD honey thing.
I may have foud a lab here in town that is willing to run some tests on the honey I saved from the dead out frames.
I have no idea of the price but the couple that own this lab grew up as farm kids & are real intrested at having a look at this problem.
We also did a lot of talking to people as to what they do for queens & cells in the spring.
This is another very intresting find I must say.
One research group I spoke with over a year ago told me point blank that the only thing that was found in there testing was that bees & people were breathing the same air.
Other than that they could prove nothing.
I have come to the conclusion that this bee keeping problem will more that likely be solved by bee keepers themselvs hopefully.
We as an industry have had to become extremly small group in the ag sector that must fix our problems by ourselfs or perish.
Truthfully I am not so sure this is all such a bad thing.
Just as many of us are I am so sick of this big goverment thing it only seems to get worse every day!
Then again in thinking this may be just why we have chosen this profession.
No one seems to be standing in line to take our job
 
#27 ·
> Hope Allen Dick can come up with ideas in his testing in the next few weeks.

Just in case there is a misunderstanding, I am not personally doing any testing but mentioned that Jerry Bromenshenk is in California right now looking for smoking guns. he has been working on this for some time now and is convinced he has the answer, but is awaiting peer review. (see quote below)

Any sampling I am involved in is in Canada, doing field work under the supervision of Dr. Medhat Nasr. Officially, there is no CCD in Canada, although high losses have been experienced in the West over the past several winters.

Sampling has determined that the prime suspects are nosema ceranae and varroa levels well over 1-3% going into winter. A co-ordinated effort by commercial beekeepers under direction of Dr. Nasr this fall has resulted in very low levels for the first time in years going in, and we are waiting expectantly for better results next spring...

Here is Jerry's appeal for co-operators. Call him if you have anything that can help.
---
All

I'm in a hotel in Oakdale tonight. Flew out to check reports of
widespread bee losses in CA, escalating rental fees, possible shortages. I'm also
taking samples - looking for two types of bee operations to inspect/sample:

Those with unusually high losses - assuming anything is left to see/sample,
AND just as importantly
Those with Great bees, no history of CCD.

Our analyses have provided leads to a very specific pathogen complex that
we are trying to verify.

I'll be here about a week, traveling up and down the state. I can be
reached at my _beeresearch@aol.com_ (mailto:beeresearch@aol.com) e-mail, or my
cell 406-544-9007.

Thanks

Jerry

P.S. I need contact information - cell phone preferably - since everyone
is involved in a major push to get bees in to the almonds, hard to reach by
any means other than cell - which they might answer. Of course, if you
know where they go to breakfast about mid-morning, give me the address of the
diner.
 
#30 · (Edited)
I have pictures and a little bit of description at http://honeybeeworld.com/diary/2009/diary092009.htm
Scroll down to the 22nd.

The shaker jar can be made from two peanut butter jars and some 6-mesh screen or ordered from http://www.beemaidbeestore.com/

Construction info is in a sidebar at http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/2008/diary110108.htm

Comparisons between controlled laboratory shakes done later and one-minute on the spot field shakes done by hand show that the field test generally underestimates the load by 10 to 20%, (i.e. 1 or 2 mites out of 10) but is plenty close for decision making on the spot.

A shake that turns up zero to about 7 or 8 mites is of minor concern, but we occasionally see over 40 (called Too Many To Count). In such cases, immediate action is needed and the prognosis is not good.

In Southern Alberta this fall, most samples were near-zero, with most in a yard showing zero and one or two showing a one to three.

Three would be one percent by our reckoning.
 
#33 ·
Of the people experiencing CCD or unexplained mass die-offs, are these die-offs in stationary hives, or in migratory hives? I was under the impression that migratory hives were affected by CCD moreso than stationary hives.

The crazy thing my son found was that not all of the operation seem to be affected that year.
But the following year the yards that wintered just fine the year before we hit but good as they dropped out as bad as the yards that had problems the year previous.


After you extracted honey from the yards with die-offs, did you use those extracted supers to put on hives in the healthy yard the following year, which then came down with the same symptoms? Or did you try to keep the extracted supers from the CCD yards isolated from other hives?

If you had some kind of disease, it is possible it was spread by honey supers moved from CCD hives and put on healthy hives.
 
#34 ·
Hi all,
I'm new to the forum, but have been a beekeeper for about 20 years.

I am in one of the commercial operations based out of ND that is experiencing large losses this year. I posted another thread called Crashing bees to describe what we are seeing in our hives. So far, we are down 50%, and more seem to be dropping off daily. I know 4 other beekeepers from ND that are here in CA this spring with half of their bees dead, and crashing.
Some of these beekeepers don't have high nosema counts. We have nosema, but no mite problem.

It's seems like they are eating the pollen stored from last summer right about now too, and the honey. There are many fields of sunflowers and corn, and wheat (which is now being sprayed with a neo-nic fungicide by some farmers) in our area where the bees were traveling through and to.

This coming summer, we are going to talk to farmers and see what they are planting, and just try to stay away from neo nic. crops, it just seems like to much of a coincidence! And, who can afford to take the chance?
Tina
 
#35 · (Edited)
Tina, a reply to your other thread….
Were you in the sunflowers? Many are having 100% loss out of sunflowers.
And from this thread.
There are many fields of sunflowers and corn, and wheat (which is now being sprayed with a neo-nic fungicide by some farmers) in our area where the bees were traveling through and to.
 
#37 ·
JPK -
Farmers are prett good about telling beekeepers about spraying the crops around home, and I don't think we were sprayed. . . but I am under the impression that with the neo-nicotinoid sunflowers the chemical is applied to the seed, and the plant becomes toxic for the life of the plant, including the pollen, nectar, and maybe even dew on young leaves. Again, I do need to do more research, and am not clear on the topic.
 
#38 ·
the weather last summer in dakotas and Mn was unusual as we had a weak flow in July but yet Sept was ok.

many many commercial beeks predicted a crash this winter as they or others had left supers on longer then usual in fall to make up lost ground in honey production.

we all know the affects of too late mite treatments - the bees die later in winter or come into spring and never build up.

if you have no data - no mite rolls - no virus checks (available from bee research in Montana) you are left with dead bees and a lot of speculation.

talk to leading bee researchers anywhere and they all concur that mites are still the number one source or indirect source (via weaken hives and viruses and other interactions) of lost hives etc.
 
#39 ·
Tina
Please help me out if you can.
Were the sunflowers the oil seed or the confectonary type.
If you are contacting the farmers PLEASE ask them as to what ther seed source is
( BRAND of seed used )
I know it is a long shot but maybe one of them have a full sack, half sack or even an empty sack with the ID tag on it.
Please PM me if you can!
 
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