European Foulbrood: not recovering on own during honeyflow

**FameFlower** · 07-06-2012, 09:20 PM

I have an apiary with 20 Minnesota hygenic hives. They all built up really well in the spring. A four weeks ago, several had their first supers in place, I had one hive that showed "yucky brood" upon inspection. Three weeks ago, seven hives showed "yucky brood". I have never had brood diseases before, so I researched. I suspected European Foulbrood (EFB). I cut comb and sent samples to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Bee Research Lab in Beltsville, Maryland. Six out of seven tested positive for EFB (the other nothing).

The University of Minnesota Bee Healthy On-line course says the EFB is a stress disease and goes usually goes away with honeyflow. First response would be to feed the hive. Even though the honeyflow had started, I fed all the hives in the apiary for two weeks (1:1 sugar water). They still show yucky brood.

I am not sure what to do at this point. My options:

1) Do nothing.
2) Do nothing but get what honey I can out of them, don't winter them, kill them in the fall.
3) Burn the hives now.
4) Shake the hives onto new frames. I only have new ones, so they have LOTS of work to do if I am going to winter them. If they don't make enough, and I don't winter them, I could wind up with EFB-tainted frames.
6) Give them Terramycin now and get NO honey from them and probably NOT 'solve' the problem and it would just reoccur with stress.

Advice welcome.

**odfrank** · 07-06-2012, 09:49 PM

You do not have to burn hives with EFB, that is for AFB. I have cured some, for now, with terramycin and HFCS. Some not. I would let those that are going to produce a crop do so, they might be clean in fall. I combined a few weaker EFB hives and ended up with a cured one. Look at them at the end of the season and make a judgement then. Maybe treat the better ones. Make sure they don't get robbed. Destroy the comb of those that you shut down.

**Skinner Apiaries** · 07-07-2012, 04:49 AM

Ok I can answer this! Look at FB any FB, as a shinking ship. Each hive is a compartment, and our job is to seal compartments, obviously burning is effective bit extremely wasteful. Best thing you can do, pull the honey, move the sick ones to an isolated yard, and treat the bejesus out of them. Oh and neat tip, tylan is more effective, and in syrup stays stable for three years, so you can feed it and they can treat theirselves til they run out of that syrup. Cool overwintering trick. Back to EFB, this is usually a result of the strain of bees you have. I have had similar results with them, you dont see "minnesota's" in my ads... Go to polline's or other stock. You'll never look back. PS Aussies have this problem in spades, so stay away from them.

**jim lyon** · 07-07-2012, 06:45 AM

Skinner: I generally agree with your post though I do question your assertion that tylosin stays stable in liquid for 3 years. If that is true then all the more reason to be careful with it. In my mind any hive fed tylosin in a liquid should not be used for honey production that season at all. I was told by a honey buyer for a major packer who does considerable testing that by far the highest readings they see are by those who feed with tylosin in a liquid. Why is tylan never fed in a dry mixture with powdered sugar and a pollen supplement? It seems to me that would best encourage feeding only to the young larvae and lessen the chances it might end up in stored honey.

**FameFlower** · 07-07-2012, 08:06 AM

I am listening to all three of you.

I originally posted this in the treatment-bee forum, but it probably got moved because I mentioned Terramycin. I generally prefer NOT to use antibiotics. I have tried the first responder method of just feeding and being in a honeyflow without sign of recovery. I don't see any non-antibiotic method of dealing with EFB at this point in a responsible fashion, without killing them.

Isolation is not possible for for me. The furthest I can move these bees is 1 mile away, not isolated enough.

The labels I am reading for Tylan are saying its only approved as a dust (Tyaln + powdered sugar).

Another thing that is giving me hesitation in using an antibiotic is that because I am in a honeyflow, is that there is a good chance I will not solve the problem. Larvae with EFB that would have died will survive to become nurse bees and continue passing along the bacterium to larvae. Come fall, with all its stresses, I'll have the same problem. ... plus I will not be able to get honey from them if I treat. So I don't get honey and I might still have problem hives.

I did now learn that Minnesota Hygenic ARE susceptible to EFB. Their hygenic behavior that detects infected pupae is not effective against larvae diseases. I have used this strain for seven years without EFB.

Still mulling things over.

**gmcharlie** · 07-07-2012, 08:20 AM

Fame, same boat here, on a smaller scale (only 4 out of 100) but I did break down and decide to treat them. tried requeening hopeing the break would help, also been feeding the crap out of them which didn't help either

**Skinner Apiaries** · 07-07-2012, 10:16 AM

If youre worried ab out antibiotic you can move the ones that need treating away from the rest and youll know theyre contaminated. As for honey, the best rule is dont put supers on if its uncapped. If its capped theyre going to eat it not move it up.

**odfrank** · 07-07-2012, 10:23 AM

There is a lot of conflicting information on the internet on the use of Tylan for EFB. From what I could determine it is only for use on AFB, not EFB.

"EFB, this is usually a result of the strain of bees you have." I have it in hives started from bait hives all from the same area. In 94025 most bait swarms and hives seem to have it bad. I combined two that had it in early spring, treated, and the hive recovered, for now, and is producing a crop.

**Ted Kretschmann** · 07-07-2012, 07:37 PM

Tylosin is for AFB only. Terrimycin or Streptomycin is most affective on EFB. Use mixed in powdered sugar. One two pound bag of Powdered sugar for every packet of TM or STM used. Dust across the back of the top bars with two tablespoons of the mixture. Repeat for two more times on a seven day basis for a total of two weeks. That should clean up the EFB. EFB is not spore forming and thus can be cleaned up. Most of the time the bacteria that causes EFB is in the general environment of the area of the infected beeyard. The bees just picked it up being bees. IE---Foraging, water gathering, and so forth. Just certain conditions cause the infection and those as stated earlier are stress related and genetics. So my recommendation is treat and clean it UP!! TED

**Tim B** · 07-14-2012, 07:50 AM

This is the best article I've read on efb. http://www.beedata.com/data2/pam_foul_brood.html

**deknow** · 07-14-2012, 02:17 PM

The odd case that we've had that didn't just go away on itz own, we crowded the bees and fed (honey). Everything appears to have cleared up.

We have heard from some larger operators of cases that got worse and worse. I'd suspect the genetics as a or the culprit... are all the mnhyg fro. The same supplier?

deknow

**gmcharlie** · 07-14-2012, 04:27 PM

While you certianly can breed for restiance, I don't belive genetics is much of a factor. Most of my queens are are from the same grafts, and still have issues in some, and some are going gangbusters.... opened 2 today that just seem to come down with it, and a cpl that had it I was going to treat are fine.