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Sat, 18 Jun 2011 07:03:28 EDT |
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Apart from beekeeper action, the usual reason for the spread of EFB is
drifting of bees between colonies. How close together are your hives? Are
they arranged in rows or scattered? Are they uniformly coloured or rainbow
shaded? Are they on a mown sward or arranged among bushes or other
landmarks?
In times of prosperity (lots of nurse bees and a good income) EFB often
goes unnoticed by the beekeeper as there isn't heavy mortality and the bees
can easily clean up those that do die. The corpses can be removed whole by
the bees without passing on the infection. In times of prosperity, infected
larvae get enough food to enable them to pupate successfully, but still
carrying the infection which they pass on. The symptoms you see: misshapen
larvae usually, are those of starvation as the bacteria out-compete the larva
for the food supply.
As far as I know, I have had it only once, in July 2000. I spotted a couple
of larvae looking uncomfortable in their cells in a nucleus. I called the
bee inspector at once. He took a look and told me he thought it looked
more like sac brood, but took a sample for the lab anyway. The sample proved
positive for EFB. That was at the time when treatment with antibiotic
(Aureomycin) rather than burning first became permissible in the UK. The
Inspector treated them while I was away at Gormanston and when I came back I
found in the hive the green dye with which he had mixed the syrup. The nuc
weakened and died anyway. Of course I kept a close eye on the other 6 nucs in
the mating apiary but none showed any sign of EFB.
It appears that there may be some strains of bee that may have some
resistance to EFB. A retiring professional beekeeper once told me that, after he
had brought all his hives back from pollination contracts and had gathered
them together in a holding yard, he found EFB in one hive. It took some
time to arrange a massive bonfire and he couldn't move them away because
there was a 'standstill order' on the apiary. In the meantime the EFB very
rapidly spread from hive to hive and was everywhere except in one particular
hive that never showed any sign of it; but it had to be burned with the
rest.
That is one reason why I number my queens rather than my hives. If I make
the time I can provide a 'family tree' on the female side of those that
didn't arrive with swarms this year, just in case any heritable qualities,
good or bad, show up.
Chris
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