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Author Topic: European foulbrood? What's to be done?  (Read 3609 times)

Offline caticind

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European foulbrood? What's to be done?
« on: June 03, 2010, 05:13:40 pm »
At my last inspection, I noticed that the brood pattern on several frames had become spotty.  The colony is from a package started the second week of April, with a queen who previously had a good, though not wall-to-wall, laying pattern.

Looking closer, I saw that there were diseased brood in several cells, but not all looked alike.

Some brood, perhaps 15 cells on a frame, showed symptoms that match European Foulbrood.  Uncapped larvae had turned into off-white "goop" on the lower wall of the cell.  From a distance it looked as though the cell had been partly filled with carpenter's glue.



Larvae could be pulled out with tweezers more or less whole, but were wet and melty and easily torn with pressure.  They smelled slightly sour, like yogurt. 

A couple of brood, maybe two or three looked like prepupae, laying along the bottom wall of the cell, but with gray/dark mottled heads, like the larvae near the center of the photo above.  I've also seen images that show larvae like this as evidence of sacbrood.  I have not seen any completely "sac"ed larvae.

There was also evidently healthy young brood on the same frame, including immediately adjacent to melted larvae.  I did not see much healthy older brood.  I did not locate the queen.  There were some eggs, but laid in patches rather than solidly filling in.  40% or more of the frame appeared to me to be empty.

Has anyone encountered symptoms like this?  Can I provide further information?  What can I do to help the colony recover?   :'(
The bees would be no help; they would tumble over each other like golden babies and thrum wordlessly on the subjects of queens and sex and pollen-gluey feet. -Palimpsest

Offline AllenF

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Re: European foulbrood? What's to be done?
« Reply #1 on: June 03, 2010, 08:27:19 pm »
European foulbrood is often considered a "stress" disease—a disease that is dangerous only if the colony is already under stress for other reasons. An otherwise healthy colony can usually survive European foulbrood. An outbreak of the disease may be controlled chemically with oxytetracycline hydrochloride, but honey from treated colonies could have chemical residues from the treatment.

Offline Finski

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Re: European foulbrood? What's to be done?
« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2010, 11:25:34 pm »
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In most official treatment advices it is said that change the queen to EFB resistant stock.
So I have got riff off every EFB what I have had.
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Offline Michael Bush

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Re: European foulbrood? What's to be done?
« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2010, 01:51:22 am »
What he said, and a break in the brood cycle...
http://www.bushfarms.com/beespests.htm#efb
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Offline Finski

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Re: European foulbrood? What's to be done?
« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2010, 03:26:10 am »
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What says MAAREC: EFB disease and its symptoms are highly variable, probably because several other types of bacteria are often present in dead and dying larvae. European foulbrood generally kills larvae that are two to four days old while they are still C-shaped in the bottom of the cells. Unlike American foulbrood, most of the larvae die before their cells are capped. a spotty pattern of capped and uncapped cells develops only when EFB becomes serious. Occasionally, pupae die from the disease.

'''''''''''''

In some cases, European foulbrood can be eliminated by requeening colonies with a young queen. Requeening accomplishes two things: it gives the colony a more prolific queen and it provides a time lag between brood cycles that allows the house bees to remove diseased larvae.

In advanced cases, the antibiotic Terramycin can be fed as treatment for the disease. Treatments are normally made at least one month before the first major nectar flow, ............. see more


http://maarec.psu.edu/pest&disease/slide22.htm


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