[louborges]

A friend lost a hive to what he thinks is CCD. All the bees are gone and the hive is empty and clean. He plans on using this same hive for a new package of bees. Is this wise? Could there be some disease in this hive that would also kill the package of bees? What do people do with their hives that fall to CCD?

 

[Fuzzy]

"Could there be some disease in this hive that would also kill the package of bees? "
Short answer is YES. Whatever it is will infect subsequent bee colonies.

"What do people do with their hives that fall to CCD?"
Well X-ray sterilization has proved effective, other than that I would think that you would be safe to replace the frames and foundation and torch the inside of the box. But understand that I am not an expert on this.

Fuzzy

 

[NewbeeNnc]

Do you have a state bee inspector or a state program that can test it out for you? If so I would do this first and see what they say, and make sure they can test for the different types of nosema and can provide you in detail what it may have. Since CCD is still somewhat of a mystery (even though more information is coming out daily) I would not take your freinds word. A lot of people are calling anything that happens to a hive CCD when it could possibly be something else. Get all the facts then go from there.

 

[shadetreebeeman]

Try finding a local experienced beek who is willing to look at the hive.They may able to spot something and you may learn something new.

 

[Barry]

Since no one even knows the cause of CCD, I don't know how anyone can say restocking CCD hives will or will not work. If it happened to me, I'd reuse the hives.

 

[devdog108]

I thought that the "symptom" of CCD was that some of the bees and the queen were left behind? Not the entire colony gone, am i wrong on this? To me, it sounds more like absconding....