Our monthly meeting is this Thursday, August 13th , 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Eagle Beach Shelter, Elk/Beaver Lake Regional Park
The August meeting is our annual outdoor picnic get-together, where we can have free-flowing conversations, discussions, arguments about beekeeping and you can have any questions answered. In fact, you could very well get multiple different options for any subject you bring up! Cake and non-alcoholic beverages served!
AFB – American foulbrood
AFB is a bacteriosis caused by bacteria. The bacteriosis is spread by the pathogen during food exchange and physical contact of the bees in the colony. The bacteria germinate in the intestine and multiply extraordinarily quickly. They penetrate the intestinal wall and destroy the entire maggot tissue. This is a pathogen-related disease.
AFB spores are very resistant to environmental influences such as dehydration, high temperatures, but also some disinfectants. This is precisely why they can survive for many decades and thus remain highly infectious.
Even the suspicion of AFB is NOTIFIABLE! Contact Tara Stuart 250-538-7355 or tara.stuart@gov.bc.ca
Symptoms
The brood dies only in the capped stage, the consequences are:
- Discolored cell lids
- Collapsed, cracked, sometimes holey cell lids
- Glue-like, milk-coffee-colored, stringy mass in the cells
- Smell of foot sweat
- Black-brown foul peatland firmly adhering to the lower cell groove as a dried maggot residue
- Cells left standing on hatched honeycombs
Source of Infection
- Flight and robbery
- Catching propertyless swarms
- Feeding of honey and/or pollen of unknown origin (especially foreign honey)
- Use of used beekeeping equipment from an apiary that is no longer in operation
- Abandonment and decay of apiaries (unlocked, abandoned hives)
- Uncontrolled migration or permanent relocation of apiaries
- Too late detection of the first signs of illness by the beekeeper
Diagnosis
- Match test (stringy mass)
- Laboratory test (details obtainable through local Bee Inspector – If you’re thinking about testing, you need to report!
Prevention
- Purchases from outside one’s own district only with an official veterinarian’s certificate (disease-free certificate) from the official veterinarian responsible for the place of sale.
- Buy bee material, honeycombs, used hives and equipment only from properly managed apiaries.
- Disinfect purchased used hives and equipment immediately
- thorough mechanical cleaning
- 3-5 % caustic soda – Natriumhydroxid (best for cleaning plastic frames)
- flaming best for wood boxes and frames
- AFB spores can survive up to 120°C they do not survive in 130°C boiling wax or propolis
- Destroy foreign swarms, don’t keep them in your apiary.
- Keep empty hives closed
- Do not place bees near landfills
- Do not feed foreign honey, pollen or honey or pollen food dough
- Avoid robbery
- Continuous building renewal (renew at least 1/3 of the honeycombs annually)
- Laboratory testing of food wreath or honey samples for foulbrood spores
- Report abandoned apiaries to the official veterinarian
- Follow the instructions of the official veterinarian!