A bad day at the association apiary

[gavin]

Many thanks to Bill and Sean for another session preparing stuff for our association apiary. Eight days ago I bought two colonies for the apiary from a beekeeper who was giving up for health reasons. I might have named him elsewhere so the next thing I'm going to do is edit that out (*). His bees were inspected two summers ago and found to be free of serious disease at the time. We were not far from there on Thursday night to see EFB in the flesh as it were. So after finishing the work, Bill headed off home and Sean and myself lingered and went to inspect the two colonies, both on double brooded Smith hives. The first was a lovely, mild colony without any problems that we could see. The second was tetchy, suffering from too much Varroa, quite a bit of chalkbrood .... and .... well, what can you see? Here are two frames, each in distant view and two progressively closer views. See what you can see in the distant view, which is similar to what you see when holding a frame up.

(* can't find it - didn't want to expose the fellow as he is a kindly gent who genuinely wants to help)

Frame 1:

http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/frame1.jpg
closer ...

http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/frame1_zoom1.jpg

closest ....



http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/frame1_zoom2.jpg

And here is frame 2:

http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/frame2.jpg

closer ....

http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/frame2_zoom1.jpg

and closest ......

http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/frame2_zoom2.jpg

[Jon]

That's bad news indeed.
There seem to be a lot of larvae affected - ie classic symptoms of EFB
What have you done with the colony?

[gavin]

Hi Jon

I would say only one on the first frame, and one maybe two on the second. We saw perhaps 5-6 cells on three frames, not a heavy infection but a clear positive nevertheless. Can you see more than that? There is a lot of chalkbrood and the colony has a problem with Varroa. Mr X said that he hadn't been in them since last year. Unfortunately he sold his other colonies to beekeepers in Tayside and beyond. The ones beyond have already made themselves known to the inspectors.

First act was to take some piccies. Second was to call Steve, our lead bee inspector (at home on a Saturday evening he was happy to discuss the details). Third was to clean up as well as I could as I had the basin, scrubbing brush and washing soda in the boot of the car. Changed gloves to get it, changed gloves to take piccies, hive tools in the basin. Smoker was also given a scrubbing in washing soda. These days I always wear disposable gloves for my beekeeping, and Sean did too. The suit will get its second laundering in 4 days, but I'll wait until after I go back tomorrow if the weather is good enough.

The colony is a strong double-brood one. No danger of it being robbed. It is starting to make swarming preparations (we saw only 5 of 22 frames) so I may go through it tomorrow to make sure that it will not swarm. The inspectors will come on Monday or Tuesday and if it is able to be shook-swarmed I'll do it as soon as I can after that, under Steve's instruction. I'll wait for them to come to have a better look at the other one as I'm pretty sure it isn't going to swarm.

Gavin

[Jon]

In there first frame there seem to be a lot of large larvae to the left of the frame lying at an unnatural angle.
Surely they should be curled up flat on the bottom of the cell.

PS. I have never seen EFB in the flesh, only in photos.

[gavin]

It is much easier with the actual frame in front of you. Those cells do have curled healthy larvae but you only see the edge due to the angle of the lens. A high resolution photo of that area is on its way to you.

There are cheap flights over from Belfast but you'd have to be quick!

G.

[Neils]

Reading on the phone but the photos don't look good. Very reminiscent of the colony I saw last year, clearly infected but still soldiering on and in circumstances that were also very similar in terms of how it got there.

Can we reach a point where EFB isn't seen as a failing on the part of the beekeeper i wonder?

As a slight aside do we treat EFB "too seriously"? I noticed with interest that from an EU perspective it doesn't seem to be regarded as a notifiable disease as it seems to be more or less regarded as endemic in colonies and only becomes a problem, well, when it becomes a problem.

[gavin]

When I went through it with D on Monday I saw the deformed wings, the frequent chalkbrood and the patchy brood pattern - it looked like typical PMS (parasitic mite syndrome). I had bees like that myself when testing colonies for Varroa tolerance. Now I guess that EFB was also part-responsible for the brood pattern. I think that it is a light infection, but we'll see.

I'll go through my own bees today (with a clean suit and hive tool). It seems possible that I spread it from mine to these as mine have been at risk too, quite close to a heavily infected apiary in 2009. I'll know soon enough ...

On relaxing the controls on EFB, I don't think that is sensible at least yet. We have a problem in Tayside but the rest of Scotland is free, bar the odd outlier. Tayside has been a major supplier of bees to other parts of Scotland and that movement needs controlled until the disease is properly under control. On Thursday we met a commercial beekeeper who is fully committed to ridding his operation of the disease as far as he can manage. We need that same level of commitment from all beekeepers, commercial and otherwise. Then we might be down to a low level of sporadic occurrences. There are two impediments to getting there: not all in the commercial sector are as well clued-up as Murray, and there is an army of hobby beekeepers out there of varying degrees of skill, beekeeping knowledge, and, as Jon reminded me, eyesight. Do people need to take an eyesight test to be beekeepers, similar to driving?! It is clear that the more we can get involved in education the better things will be. I might have spotted those few cells partly because of the visit to Murray's on Thursday.

[Jon]

Reading the various beekeeping forums there is a plethora of posts from people who can never find queens, never see eggs and some even claim to be unable to see larvae. The chance of your average beekeeper noticing one or two dodgy larvae on a frame has got to be slim.
I am really short sighted but I look over the top of my specs when I need to look closely at a frame.
I do grafting without my glasses as well as I can focus up close to the larva I want to move.

[gavin]

Just to make it clear for anyone looking in, on the first frame you are looking for a melted-down larva at the bottom of the frame. In this case it is a drone larva. Maybe the bees started to cap it then changed their minds? On the second frame again it is a melted-down larva looking like a piece of white wax, in the middle of the frame. There is a second one that could be chalkbrood or EFB, or possibly both together if that is possible.

There are probably multiple reasons for the poor brood pattern in this colony. On Thursday night we saw colonies with some EFB but good brood patterns.

I have slides somewhere of other stages affected by EFB, photos I took near the start of the discovery of the outbreak in 2009. Very young larvae dead and brown. Larvae that were sealed and died inside. I'll try and put them up here later tonight.

Bear in mind that you are seeing frames from which the bees were removed. We were initially looking through it for queen cells with a covering of bees on the frames, brushing them aside where they may have been hiding something. A full search for brood disease means throwing the bees off every frame with brood but it was a cold afternoon and this colony is fierce at the best of times.

[gavin]

[noise of some serious back-pedalling and screeching of brakes ..... ]

OK then, here goes, I WAS WRONG!! (Doesn't happen that often folks, honest, that's my story anyway)

Steve and Angus came and checked through them. Plenty of dodgy larvae samples taken and some sent off to the lab for confirmation ... but ... the test kits used on the spot were negative! Seems like it is Parasitic Mite Syndrome rather than EFB.

So there you are, some of the better pictures of PMS on the web. I feel a bit silly but you live and learn.

[Neils]

As the first thing I did was scurry off to read up more on PMS as I was scrabbling to recall much about it, it would appear that general consensus seems to have it as possibly displaying symptoms very close in appearance to EFB but lacking the odour (which as we know might not be present in all cases of EFB), so I'd say that was better news than first appeared and not much reason to feel silly especially when you've had inspectors there also running tests on the Lateral Flow Devices to suggest that it's (thankfully) not EFB.

[Jon]

Plenty of dodgy larvae samples taken and some sent off to the lab for confirmation ... but ... the test kits used on the spot were negative!

Even the melted down larvae?

[gavin]

Yup, even the melted-down larvae.

Who'd have thought it. Unless of course the lab tests come up with a different answer which isn't likely.

What would we do without the inspectors, eh? Thanks guys ... I hope that your day continued with a string of blanks.

[AlexJ]

Who'd have thought it. Unless of course the lab tests come up with a different answer which isn't likely.

Gavin,

Not sure if it's related to your incident but I received an email from the NBU indicating an outbreak of EFB not too far from my apiary. Whatever the final outcome it's good to see the system in action, even if it proves negative later - or perhaps is linked to another site in the area.

I'll send you a PM to discuss distances... No I can't - your mailbox is full.

Alex

[Calum]

I notice that much more often than not collapsed colonies (for whatever reason) seem to be on very old frames.
Is that just me, or is there more at work there (spore build up,,)?

[gavin]

Sorry about that - I'll clear it in a minute.

Did hear about a positive in Fife. There was some debate about one in 2009 and the final decision was that it wasn't EFB. Seems to be true this time though. Reading between the lines, I suspect this is unconnected to the source of bees mentioned in this thread.

G.

[gavin]

BeeBase currently has two EFB positive apiaries in Fife with a total of three colonies affected. They are in quite different parts of E Fife.

https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/maps/map.cfm

Calum - not sure, but possible!

[gavin]

The lab tests came back today on the extra larvae taken away by Steve and Angus. They too were negative. Back to business as usual, including getting some more queen raising under way ...

[Neils]

Excellent news.

[mazza]

My understanding is that the early signs of EFB (the discoloured, twisted larvae) are basically identical to those of starvation as the EFB bacteria kills by competing with the larva for it's food supply. This would mean that a colony with PMS (and so fewer healthy adult bees) is likely to struggle to look after all of the brood, and the starving larvae effectively mimic "EFB" type symptoms. The only difference at this stage would be the absence of the bacteria within the gut of the larva, so don't beat yourself up about mistaking it for something more serious. The most important thing is that you called the inspectors, had the colony checked out and got an all clear :-) Happy ending!

[gavin]

Thanks Mazza! Nice to see you here. The feedback via Graham in Perth from those wonderful people in the lab did mention starvation related to mite pressure as a reason for the symptoms. That now makes perfect sense. I was a little puzzled as the top brood box is quite heavy (I lifted it off tonight to apply Varroa medication) ... but a lack of healthy nurse bees to make the bee bread could explain things.

I plumped for Apistan which is something I haven't used for years. It should knock down enough Varroa to see it though this crisis, even if it isn't fully effective locally any more.

The colony alongside is mild-mannered and doesn't have a Varroa problem, so I'll be grafting some queens from that one.

Gavin

[Pete L]

Another thing that can be mistaken for EFB is neglected brood,when a queen is failing and laying a percentage of infertile eggs in worker cells and the workers do not feed them properly,neglect them. The only difference is the brood in neglected brood is of varying ages, unlike EFB where they are of the same age just before capping.

[gavin]

Many thanks for that Pete, and it is good to see you posting here. In the summer of 2009, when I was dashing about spreading fear and alarm in the countryside, the President of a neighbouring association had a frame with mushy larvae that had us convinced was EFB. Not so, just the product of a drone laying queen (or maybe a queenless colony). I don't remember whether or not the larvae were of different ages - perhaps there were just a few like that. It is odd how some colonies lose heart - one I had last summer that was severely attacked by wasps never really got its mojo back.

EFB does seem to affect the older larvae approaching full size but it also seems (on the evidence of that other thread with the photos) to kill very young larvae too.

[Derek Uchman]

Delighted that everything worked out fine, Gavin.

[gavin]

Me too, thanks Derek. I'll be using that kerfuffle as an excuse for the slow progress with queen raising next Saturday. It should be a good opportunity to show off the new apiary, hope you can come.

[gavin]

One little update. One of the pair of colonies has really nice mild bees that look Amm and didn't prepare to swarm at the drop of a hat unlike my own colonies. Definitely breeding material and the one I was about to graft from. But ... after the two inspections last Sunday and Monday it appears to be queenless. Larvae at the fat grub stage only, and a scattering of queen cells. That is a real pity - I can raise a few queens from the stock and will make sure that they provide drones for queen raising next year, but I really wanted the original queen too.

Maybe the queen was disturbed by the inspection and flew into the neighbouring colony? If she did I guess that she didn't survive the experience.