At 09:08 AM 7/31/98 -0400, you wrote:
 
>More information on "The Proper Use of Terramycin" was provided by
 
And More About Terramycin Then You Ever  Wanted To Know
or
"Was The Dress Stained With MY What?"
Clinton on the phone to Stanford University.
 
Hi U all, bee keepers & their friends,
 
Terramycin is one of several antibiotic's that works in the prevention of
European Foul Brood and American Foul Brood in honeybees. It is registered
in the US for that use, sad for the countries that have not allowed its use
by their bee keepers. Most commercial bee keepers here in the US destroy
all combs or at the least all brood combs from hives infected with AFB and
none that use TM report more then little economic damage from AFB with
levels at or below 1/2 of 1% per year and many at zero.
 
In years back the burning of all AFB equipment would also keep the new
infection rate in commercial operations at the same levels as today. But
because today with so many bees commingling in limited areas of pasture
such as caused by pollination projects the use of TM is more important then
ever before in areas that have a history of AFB. Beekeepers in these areas
should make prophylactic treatments with TM.. And because of the nature of
EFB is such that to gain control in areas of high stress or because of poor
bee foods during the most active brood rearing periods it is necessary to
have the TM in the hive before the EFB problem develops and when used as
directed NO EFB will be found.
 
ABOUT RESISTANCE, we all should be concerned, but the resistance reported
so far has been far from conclusive to any but the few reporting it and NO
ONE has yet shown that there are viable reproductive strains of AFB that
are resistance to any or all antibiotics. If this was possible I think by
now most beekeepers today realize how fast this would spread and we all
would have resistance AFB in our hives and we do not.
 
Because the poor hygienic behavior of the "beekeeper" has been shown for
more then 75 years to be the prime cause for the spread of AFB and this
behavior can be changed or controlled no one should get their panties in a
wad over these reports until you hear the EFB cannot be controlled with
antibiotics as EFB has in the past taken out more bees in the US then
anything else reported to date and including the feral populations at the
time and because of that we today have a diverse gene pool from around the
world in American bees. AFB has never been reported to have destroyed large
numbers of hives in a short span of time as EFB does and AFB is not
considered a disease of feral honeybees because it is rare in them and I am
sure and encourage those who have seen AFB in feral hives to let us hear
about it. Most old time bee tree cutters reported NO AFB in the woods and
no one has ever shown or suggested a danger to feral honeybee populations
because of AFB. Some, me and one or two others, have went as far as to
suggest "AFB was a beekeepers disease" and not a true honeybee disease and
some feral bee research has been able to suggest just that. But if your
bees have it you better take care of it as if not they won't be restocking
the feral populations anyway.
 
The water soluble powder form of TERRAMYCIN is the only form that is
economic to feed bees even if you do not use a liquid as a carrier. The
other forms will work but the dosage must be increased and there is
considerable waste and you should avoid their use. TM is used to treat the
unit of production and not the bee. This antibiotic may have no effect on
the disease itself but does cause the bees to respond when it is fed to
them to deal with the problem diseases. It works, how it works is not clear
and may not be known the same as how the common aspirin works, it just
does. There are many other antibiotics that will do the same at higher
costs but in some cases at a lower cost and are not now in use by the bee
industry so the question of the loss of Terramycin as a beekeeping tool for
what ever reason is a little premature and something that we should be
aware of but NOT worry about because there is a greater chance that because
of animal feeding practices hyped by the different food fanatic groups and
not what beekeepers are doing will be the reason PFIZER the manufacture
will some day have a problem. At that time we will need to move on
replacing it and most of the needed work has been done on several products
that could be used in place of TM. Most if not all will cost more because
of their limited use compared to TM.
 
TM is a formulation of the chemical OXY TETRACYCLINE and was found to be
beneficial to honeybees with several disease problems all through trial and
error with many other chemicals and antibiotics. Further trial and error
found the dosage of TM that would kill 50% of the adult bees and the
recommended amount of active material to use in each hive was found by
backing off from that point. Increasing the amount of active ingredient
used in each hive will at some point reach that LD 50 level so don't do it.
I can say for a fact that in personal mistakes or trials and real (t)errors
that dusting hives with 100% TM 10 does have a dramatic positive effect on
the presence of the disease EFB and any loss of adult bees was minimal.
 
Any material that gets into the brood food of honeybees including sugar or
sugar and TM will cause the bees to remove that food and the larva will
die. I guess if you want to be PC Terramycin used this way will kill brood,
but so would anything else so what's the big deal. TM when used in a
liquid, water, sugar syrup, or with bee spit will with exposure to sun
light and in a short time degrade. All recommendations for TM used this way
take that into consideration and it should not be a problem to beekeepers
other then those who insist that a clear glass jar outside of the hive is
the only way to feed. These beekeepers should feed only what the bees will
take into the hive in one day and then feed fresh material the next day
until the prescribed amount of material is consumed or taken into the hive.
This is true with all uses of soluble TM with birds or bees.
 
TM feed in the fall to bees in Canada has been shown to be active the next
spring after stored in the hive in sugar syrup. A few lots of honey have
been intercepted off the bee farm containing small amounts of TM, these
lots are destroyed or at the best returned to the producer to feed back to
their bees. This has NOT been a problem and some packers do make a
organized effort to check for TM and other residues of farm chemicals.
 
Of all the drugs or antibiotics tested or used with bees we have been very
fortunate in the choice of TM because it works, its been cheep, has caused
beekeepers few problems, and when fed to normal healthy hives with no
history of disease will increase the amount of brood over feeding just
sugar syrup alone.
 
God Bless the Farm Division of Pfizer Chemical Company, if we had to depend
on the others today such as ZOECON the cost of treating one hive would be
measured in dollars and not cents as we may again discover with new bee
medicine products soon to be released for use by beekeepers in the US.
 
ttul, the OLd Drone
http://beenet.com
for the latest HYPE on
Killer Bees & Worms
 
 
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