Two Queens in a hive

A beekeeper was doing a hive inspection on a split they had made. They had introduced a new marked queen into the split. The parent hive was queenrite. Some how another queen was in the same hive now. The abdomen on both queens was large, like they are both laying. This does happen occasionally, but usually the two queens are mother/daughter. The beekeeper just left it this way to see what would happen. Photo by K. Martins

American Foulbrood On A Frame

This pic shows AFB scale in the cells of a brood frame

A beekeeper couple stopped by Nature's Nectar LLC on Friday. I have been helping out there this week. They said their hive has been performing badly for the last three years. So, they brought some brood frames in to look at. They purchased their equipment used. The ways to get American foulbrood is used equipment, robbing out a diseased colony or from feeding store bought honey.
 At a quick glance, I could see that their frames were loaded with American Foulbrood scale. The way to look for scale, is to hold the frame by the ears of the top bar. Tilt the bottom of the frame slightly away from you. Look at the bottom of the cells. The scale is always located on the bottom of the cell. If you looked straight into the cells you would not see the scale.
  In this picture above, the arrows are pointing at some cells that have scale in them. But, you can see many other cells that have scale in them. This scale is highly infectious, it does not go away and the bees cannot remove it. The only reliable method of treatment is high temperature therapy. A bonfire.
 After discussing options with the beekeepers and remedy their situation. The remedy is, to take their boxes that they are using and blacken the inside of the box with a torch. Direct contact with an open flame will kill AFB spores on contact. Then new frames and foundation are placed into the boxes. The bees are then shaken on to the new frames and foundation. A feeder pail is then placed on top of the colony. There is now a brood break to break the cycle of infection. The consumption of syrup will flush any remaining spores from the bees bodies. It would be nice to give this hive a couple treatments of Terramyacin. You need a prescription from a Veterinarian to get Terramyacin. By the time there is brood in the hive, the AFB spores should be gone.

AFB near Eau Claire, Wisconsin

AFB Rope Test - note the color, when the diseased larvae is a milk chocolate color is the best time to do the rope test. AFB will rope an inch of more.

A beekeeper who has 3 bee yards around the Eau Claire area, 1 near Eleva, and 1 near Foster - all in Wisconsin has confirmed cases of AFB in all 5 yards.  These areas are all about 60 miles east of Hudson, but people move bees around and it is good to know about. The beekeeper does not know where this came from. He is working on the problem and has been very honest of sharing his dilemma so other beekeepers in the area can be aware that this is happening.
 American Foulbrood is something that can sneak up on a beekeeper. Most beekeepers have never had AFB before and do not know what it looks like. The times that I have seen AFB is usually when a beekeeper calls me and tells me their hives keep dying by early fall. I have them bring me one of their brood boxes of a hive that died. A quick inspection by and experienced beekeeper can see the AFB scale in the cells on the frames.
 When I say experienced beekeeper, it is a beekeeper who has had AFB before and has fixed their hives. There are many long time beekeepers who have never had or experienced AFB. So, without getting burned by this disease, many beekeepers don't know what it looks like.
 Personally when I was a young beekeeper, I purchased some used equipment. Unbeknownst to me, The used equipment was full of American Foulbrood scale in the frames. After getting AFB in many of my hives and then fixing the aftermath of the disease, the life of hard knocks gave me the experience to identify the disease.
 Beekeepers tend to focus on an odor to troubleshoot for AFB. By the time and odor becomes an issue in the AFB hive, the AFB can become widespread in the hive and possibly have been spread to other hives. This is not an effective way to find AFB. AFB is a brood disease affecting older larvae. Young larvae will look fine. Older larvae will start to turn yellow. The larvae will start to darken to a milk chocolate color and turn to a gelatinous mass, that will flatten out into the bottom of the cell. The tongues of the diseased larvae usually sticks up in the cell off the bottom of the cell. This gelatinous mass will dry out and form a hard scale on the bottom of the cell. The scale is highly infectious. Bees do not have the ability to remove the scale. One frame of AFB scale has enough spores to infect every colony in North America. Millions of AFB spores could be in the scale on one frame. While this would never happen, I just wanted to mention the scope of possible infection. AFB scale is still infectious even after over one hundred years.
 When the larvae is in the chocolate color stage, that is the time when the rope test should be administered. Poking the larvae with a small twig and slowly pull it away from the larvae. If the goo pulls out in a rope that is over an inch long that is probably AFB. If it does not rope an inch or more, it would not be AFB.
 Normally American Foulbrood is not widespread. AFB usually gets spread from used equipment, bees robbing out a dying AFB colony, or from feeding store bought honey to your bees. There is a possibility that AFB spores could get into extracted honey. While this has no effects on humans, bees can come possibly down with the disease from store bought honey.
If your colony has larvae that is nice and pearly glistening white then your bees are fine. Whenever the larvae is discolored then there is a brood disease. The common brood diseases we see are chalkbrood (no treatment available), European Foulbrood Brood (Terramyacin treatment), The Crud (Terramycin treatment), American Foulbrood (remove diseased comb and burn frames, shake bees onto new equipment, treat with Terramyacin). If diseased AFB frames are not removed from the hive, the disease will start up again.
  Learning to spot a disease is part of being a good beekeeper. Sometimes you may need help identifying a disease and there are beekeepers out there willing to look at your frames. You need to go through a veternarian to get a prescription for Terramyacin.

Overwintered Hives Are Big Swarmers

While it is great to get honey off an overwintered hive in May, the downside come in June when swarming starts in earnest.
 The recent warm weather and more crowded conditions lay the ground work for swarming.
 The nectar flow from the dandelion and fruit bloom is waning with no other nectar flows imminent other than Black Locust trees. Black Locust trees should be blooming now in the south metro, coming soon to the whole lower part of MN and WI. But, I digress.
 Swarm management needs to be followed now, in all strong colonies. Checking for swarm cells every seven days. If you miss a swarm cell, the bees are gone.
 This hive swarmed today.

Bees can be sneaky during swarming time. This swarm cell is on the top bar of a hive I checked today.

Oh Oh, capped swarm cell. The odds are very high if you see capped swarm cells the bees have already boogied. You don't necessarily want to kill capped swarm cells. You may need them to make a queen. You can take a frame with a swarm cell and the adhering bees and move it into a nuc box for an extra queen.

I helped a beekeeper today with her swarm. She saw the bees swarm and land inside a honeysuckle bush. The bees were about three feet off the ground. Easy to get to. We caught the swarm and we put it back into the hive they came from. There were some steps we had to go through. The beekeeper and I made a video. I will try to get it out soon.

Overwintered hives are big honey makers

Dan from the Northwest metro has a strong overwintered colony. He has been stacking supers on the hive as they fill up. He claims that the dandelions around his hives seem especially heavy this year. The honey is from dandelions and the fruit bloom.

Wow, four supers full already. That is a great nectar flow. If your supers are still in the garage, look what you are missing. Dan runs medium supers for brood boxes. You can see the queen excluder on top of the third super. Photo by Dan.

Crisis Averted

I went out to my single hives to look for swarm cells. add a second box and increase the size of the entrance reducer.
 It was 87 degrees on Saturday so any strong hive was more than likely hanging out on the front porch.
 It was cooler on Sunday morning when I went to address my hot hives, all of the bees had moved back into the single deeps. There were no bees outside other than the foragers coming and going at the entrance.
 When I went through the colonies there were many queen cups and one or two full blown uncapped swarm cells. I removed all the drone brood on the bottom of the frames. Then I checked to make sure that any queen cup or swarm cell was squashed. A second deep was added and the frame feeder was filled up with ProSweet. The new deep was 10 frames of Max Draw foundation. I moved my frame feeder to the top box for easier filling and a new half a pollen patty was given to each colony. Even my three overwintered colony got a half a pollen patty.

What a difference a day makes. The day before it was 87 degrees and the bees were clustered outside the hive. The crowded conditions made them move outside. The next morning it is cool and all the bees had moved back inside.

I checked the hive for swarm cells. There was one active swarm cell with egg and royal jelly. I removed all of this drone comb and the queen cups.

I added a second box. I am using a cap and ladder feeder and my syrup of choice is ProSweet syrup. The entrance reducer was increased to the large opening and a frame that was being worked on was taken from the lower box and put into the second box. I have some splits to do later in the week. I will be taking frames of brood and adding it to all of these four colonies. This will bolster their numbers and get the hives ready for the nectar flow later in June.

Nature's Nectar LLC Closed on Sunday's

Nature's Nectar LLC is no longer open on Sunday's.