bananas kill Chalkbrood?

[Greengage]

Came across this: You take a 1 1/2′ shim board and put it on your hive. Then you take a banana cut it in half and put it on the top bars inside the hive, skin down. Leave your hive alone for one month. Do not peak! One month later the banana will be dried up and the Chalkbrood will be gone.
http://www.beverlybees.com/mass-bee-field-day-2012/

[The Drone Ranger]

That's what they say I looked into it a while back but it turned out to be folklore

So I think you slipped up there GG

http://www.gifbin.com/bin/012013/1378401004_banana_slips_on_man.webm


:)

[Calluna4u]

Yep, another unproven story from those desperate to uncover a completely 'natural' remedy. (But is a banana in a beehive natural?)

Even without digging beyond the initial story I could see the flaws back then, within the first minute of reading about it. Chalk brood comes and goes. Colonies with chalk on day 1 are often without it a month later, and in also works the other way round, so they could have been seeing a natural undulation in the problem, which tends to get less of an issue as the weather warms and the colony builds.

However.....killer flaw No.1 for me was the 'leave it undisturbed for a month and don't peek in'. In the active season and as its for chalk its the period of most rapid build up. Utter non starter unless you want to give away all your best bees in swarms and be left with a non producing load of rubbish to hopefully build for a modest heather crop. Complete non starter even if it DID work.

[nemphlar]

They are good for ripening conference pears, I think it's the ethylene bananas give off

[SDM]

The leave it alone for a month was probably good advice mind you, doesn't banana do a good impression of alarm pheromone?

[Greengage]

The leave it alone for a month was probably good advice mind you, doesn't banana do a good impression of alarm pheromone?

I did not believe it anyway I was being mischievous posting it, I also hear never eat bananas if going to the hive

[EK.Bee]

I read somewhere that Ascosphera apis produces linoleic acid that inhibits EFB & AFB (feldlaufer et al)
So as well as losing a swarm & getting stung you might need to burn them as well
All that from a dodgy banana tip :)

[prakel]

I read somewhere that Ascosphera apis produces linoleic acid that inhibits EFB & AFB (feldlaufer et al)

EK.Bee, I hope you'll excuse me adding the link for you, but your post was interesting enough to send me looking for the original:


Summary; Ethanol extracts of mixtures of mycelia and spores of Ascosphaera apis, the causative agent of chalkbrood disease in honey bee, was shown to contain an antimicrobial compound active against Bacillus larvae, the causative agent of American foulbrood disease. Purification by high performance liquid chromatography and analysis by mass spectrometry identified the active compound as 9,12-octadecadienoic acid (linoleic acid)

Isolation and identification of linoleic acid as an antimicrobial agent from the chalkbrood fungus, Ascosphaera apis by M.F Feldlaufer, W.R Lusby, D.A Knox, H Shimanuki; apidologie 1993

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiphuaHlr3LAhVDP5oKHfT8CboQFggcMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fhal.archives-ouvertes.fr%2Fhal-00891061%2Fdocument&usg=AFQjCNHqzegFxVmb3oyBoxDEJ7UTCdk4YQ&sig2=h5F4710T5ZXqzgeIWabIRA

[Emma]

Thanks for posting this, EK.Bee and Prakel, it's fascinating. I'd thought the chalkbrood-vs-foulbrood idea was a completely unfounded internet rumour. This suggests a possible mechanism.
(Won't stop me getting out the acetic acid, though!)

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Emma
Shows what I know I said it was a myth
Still not convinced :)
Do you think acetic acid has any affect on chalkbrood spores

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

[Emma]

Hi DR,
Yup, me too! - I was quite convinced by now that there was nothing in it.
Beebase reckons acetic fumigation works against chalkbrood - according to their info sheets on "Hive Cleaning and
Sterilisation" and on "Fumigating Comb". (Tho' the 2 leaflets do give slightly different methods, & different amounts of acid - I went for the one which was easiest!)
I certainly hope it works - feels like I've spent at least a day by now tidying up combs, carting them to the polytunnel, & piling them in a sealed tower of boxes. Even if chalkbrood does have a function, I'd rather keep it to a minimum.

[prakel]

Thanks for posting this, EK.Bee and Prakel, it's fascinating. I'd thought the chalkbrood-vs-foulbrood idea was a completely unfounded internet rumour.

There's some further interesting reading here:


The aim of this study was to test a range of fatty acids against a diverse range of Australian honeybee bacterial pathogens. Some overseas isolates were also included in this study for comparative purposes. This study has demonstrated that both P. l. larvae and M. pluton are sensitive to a range of fatty acids. Of the 28 fatty acids tested in this study 15 showed activity against P. l. larvae. On average, in decreasing order of activity the six most active were undecanoic, homo-y-linolenic, capric, 7,10,13,16-docosatetraenoic, linolenic and 13,16,19-docosatrienoic (Table 3). Of the 28 tested in this study 21 showed activity against P. l. larvae in Feldlaufer’s study. The six most active in that study were lauric, myristoleic, palmitoleic, linoleic, ricinoleic and undecanoic.

The activity of the fatty acids against P. l. larvae was usually less than that reported by Feldlaufer et al (1993b)

Fatty acids – an alternative control strategy for honeybee diseases by Michael Hornitzky 2003

https://rirdc.infoservices.com.au/downloads/03-028


None of the eight fatty acids protected larvae from developing EFB. There was no significant difference between the mortality of the infected control larvae and infected larvae which were also treated with each of the fatty acids.

Can fatty acids and oxytetracycline protect artificially raised larvae from developing European foulbrood? by Thomas Giersch, Idris Barchia, Michael Hornitzky 2010

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiR-ZTdnsLLAhWGdpoKHYXjCRIQFgggMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fhal.archives-ouvertes.fr%2Fhal-00892056%2Fdocument&usg=AFQjCNEgjWF9pshqM8hff7fwob2bQ7Y8rQ&sig2=laHlXD82JmnFT7TzIe6QCQ

[The Drone Ranger]

On bbc radio in the car heard a bit about this website
http://retractionwatch.com/the-retraction-watch-leaderboard/top-10-most-highly-cited-retracted-papers/

Not everything published is correct
sometimes a mistake if made
sometimes data is laundered to bias the conclusions
sometimes to retain funding data is even made up

Not saying in any of these cases above but if it seems wrong then it may well be wrong is a not unreasonable assumption

[busybeephilip]

Interesting website, unfortunately there is a lot of pressure on young researchers to produce data for their PhD's, MSc's etc that occasionally results can be made up and it is likely that this will become more common as pressure on the university system for publication output increases, I have also personally known of persons being caught out doing just this.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Phillip
Cold fusion is one of the projects that drew in huge amounts of money based on findings which could not be repeated and conclusions that ignored alternative explanations but made careers and lifestyles for the main researchers in the field

Or the ongoing belief in magnets properties to cure ailments despite its dubious roots in mesmerism
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2556642/ an example of a trial
Or this
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/06/magnets-keep-blood-flowing