Disease or robbing after effects ?

[karu]

Oops, I had some robbing going on for few days, after I'd extracted few honey frames and put them back on a weaker hive to be cleaned up. The hive appeared to have some weak entry points... It took me a while to realize that it is being robbed, plus the weather was not really cooperating, so today I finally opened the hive to remove and rearrange some supers and to look in a brood chamber at the situation. First I pulled the drone frames - some brood cappings were chewed off or had small holes in them. I noticed lots of dead brood in uncapped cells which looked partially dried out or even completely black. I also looked at other than drone frames and situation looked similar - dead brood, cells with holes, I believe some of the capped cells were slightly sunken, spotted brood pattern (which was present in this hive for a while if not from the beginning in April). I did not do a rope test. I don't think anything smells bad, I believe that my sense of smell is pretty good , although there is some kind of stronger (kind of sourish)smell lately, but I was under impression that it should smell stronger during the goldenrod honey flow. I realized that the hive was robbed pretty bad - is it possible that the dead brood and ripped off cells are the results of that, or should I be concerned with AFB and alike ? I have to go to my strong hive tomorrow to replace the drone frames and I am afraid to use my tools, although it could be already late since they probably joined that robbing too. I was not treating my hives with anything except sugar powder and crisco patties throughout the season and they were started this spring from treated nucs. :confused:

[mike haney]

use bleach on your tools every inspection until you determine if you are disease free. you can dip them in a milk carton or coffee can full and wipe dry. good luck,mike

[Michael Bush]

The rope test is the common AFB field test. Put a small stick (match stick toothpick, stiff shaft of grass etc.) into the sunken cell, stir, and pull it out. If it ropes it's probably AFB.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beespests.htm#afb

[karu]

How soon the smell becomes noticeable ? If it does not smell bad, what else can it be ?
Would anyone extract honey using extractor if AFB or EFB was suspected ?
Still waiting for the nice quiet day to open the hive and do the rope test...

[Michael Bush]

Dead or chilled brood will smell bad. Not like AFB, but rotten. I'd do the rope test. Use the smell as a reason to check. But unless you are very familiar with the distinct smell, use other diagnostics before assuming anything.

[honeyshack]

I was told that a fishy sweet smell was an indication of AFB. I had asked an inspector what the smell would be like and that was her answer.

I would wait on extracting until you know for sure. The disease lives in the wax. Unless you are 100% sure you can eliminate all wax from the equipment after extracting you could potentially spread the disease to you healthy hives. Even if you mix a few frames in the boxes you could contaminate the clean boxes.