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Author Topic: Do you quarantine your caught swarms?  (Read 10371 times)

Offline Jim134

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Re: Do you quarantine your caught swarms?
« Reply #20 on: March 31, 2012, 09:31:59 pm »
Most of the spores and contaminants are in the combs.
If the spores can transfer to the brood can they transfer to the honey?

Yes I will not feed nu-know  honey.
Hmm, now I'm back at the beginning again...  So the swarms *can* bring the spores (disease?) with them in the honey they bring from their mother hive.  If they use this honey to begin building new comb with aren't they effectively seeding the colony's new home with the spores?   ???

Btw Jim, what is "nu-know  honey"?

Ed

honey not from me.


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Offline Intheswamp

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Re: Do you quarantine your caught swarms?
« Reply #21 on: March 31, 2012, 11:14:46 pm »
Thanks for the definition.

What about the statements I made about the spores being in the honey that the swarm carries to their new hive and use to make comb with?  If the spores can transfer to the honey then when the swarm prepares to swarm the bees load up with the spore-laced honey.  Got any comments on that?   :?

Ed
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Offline backyard warrior

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Re: Do you quarantine your caught swarms?
« Reply #22 on: March 31, 2012, 11:35:50 pm »

there is little you can do because drones travel from hive to hive in the summer.  If your bees dont have a problem and the ones around your area do chances are yours will get it too.  If you see disease or any other problem treat the hive or hives involved.  You def dont want to bring foulbrood into your apairy.  Just make sure when u do cut outs the comb you bring them home with doesnt have sick brood. Chris

Offline Jim134

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Re: Do you quarantine your caught swarms?
« Reply #23 on: April 02, 2012, 03:53:16 pm »
Thanks for the definition.

What about the statements I made about the spores being in the honey that the swarm carries to their new hive and use to make comb with?  If the spores can transfer to the honey then when the swarm prepares to swarm the bees load up with the spore-laced honey.  Got any comments on that?   :?

Ed
The  theory is bees use up the honey thy are carrying in making comb or feed for than self
This is why you use clean boxes and frames and use  foundation or foundation-less  DO NOT GIVE COMB.
the man who told me this was Charles Mraz of Middlebury Vermont, USA

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=35250600
 "drones travel from hive to hive "

Yes drones will do this but thy do not feed brood but robber bees will got in to the honey so wax moths or SHB are not a bad thing some times.

   BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
« Last Edit: April 02, 2012, 04:10:59 pm by Jim 134 »
"Tell me and I'll forget,show me and I may  remember,involve me and I'll understand"
        Chinese Proverb

"The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways."
 John F. Kennedy
Franklin County Beekeepers Association MA. http://www.franklinmabeekeepers.org/

Offline Intheswamp

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Re: Do you quarantine your caught swarms?
« Reply #24 on: April 02, 2012, 11:29:52 pm »
But Jim, do you see where I'm coming from?  If the bees in the swarm gorge on honey (that has disease spores in it) and when they get to the nice, new, clean swarm trap they beginning making comb...with spore-laced honey.  The wax they make from the tainted honey won't have the spores in it?  I guess the process from honey to wax kills the spores? ???  Whatever the case, I won't worry about swarms, but sounds like it's a good idea to be careful with cut-outs.

Ed
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American blood spilled to protect the freedom and peace of people all over the world.  320,000 USA casualties in WWI, 1,076,000 USA casualties in WWII, 128,000 USA casualties in the Korean War, 211,000 casualties in the Vietnam "conflict", 57,000 USA casualties in "War on Terror".  Benghazi, Libya, 13 USA casualties. These figures don't include 70,000 MIA.  But, the leaders of one political party of the United States of America continue to make the statement..."What difference does it make?".

"We can't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism."..."The press is our chief ideological weapon." - Nikita Khrushchev

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Offline Jim134

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Re: Do you quarantine your caught swarms?
« Reply #25 on: April 03, 2012, 12:49:06 am »
AFB (spores) is a brood disease not at aduit disease.


    BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
"Tell me and I'll forget,show me and I may  remember,involve me and I'll understand"
        Chinese Proverb

"The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways."
 John F. Kennedy
Franklin County Beekeepers Association MA. http://www.franklinmabeekeepers.org/

Offline Intheswamp

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Re: Do you quarantine your caught swarms?
« Reply #26 on: April 03, 2012, 11:25:47 am »
I worried about the same thing on a cut out I did that had SHB and my one hive in my yard did not.  I just decided to spend a bit more time in the cutout hive to kill adults and installed beetle blasters to catch the ones I don't squish.  I find one or two adults once a week and none in the traps.  *fingers crossed* original hive doesn't come down with them.

CV Bees
CVBees, I figured I'd pass this on to you.  Yesterday I had two swarms from my beeyard (didn't have but three hives  :-\ ).  It was a drawn out process retrieving them from a briar patch.  When I went to one of the boxes I was trying to catch them in I noticed a beetle on the inner cover!!!  It failed the pressure test, btw.  The box had been sitting there probably about three hours at that time with bees crawling all over/inside it.  Whether the beetle flew in with the swarm (I had killed a few beetles in the hive they swarmed from) or whether it was just a beetle that found the swarm in that length of time I don't know.  I just thought it was notable that the beetle was there that quick with new equipment being used.  So, swarms *may* include beetles...who knows?

Ed
www.beeweather.com 
American blood spilled to protect the freedom and peace of people all over the world.  320,000 USA casualties in WWI, 1,076,000 USA casualties in WWII, 128,000 USA casualties in the Korean War, 211,000 casualties in the Vietnam "conflict", 57,000 USA casualties in "War on Terror".  Benghazi, Libya, 13 USA casualties. These figures don't include 70,000 MIA.  But, the leaders of one political party of the United States of America continue to make the statement..."What difference does it make?".

"We can't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism."..."The press is our chief ideological weapon." - Nikita Khrushchev

"Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they wont come to yours." - Yogi Berra

Offline David McLeod

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Re: Do you quarantine your caught swarms?
« Reply #27 on: April 04, 2012, 01:50:56 pm »
I considered doing so but came to the conclusion that since I will not treat and I want survivor stock that is would be a waste of effort. Basically it boils down to this.

Foulbroods; I fully inspect all cutouts for signs of disease. If in doubt they don't come home with me. Seriously I have never found active foulbrood so not a real worry.

Mites; all bees have mites and since I refuse to treat they might as well live or die.

Viruses; I have no way of testing for this so see above.


Nosema; more of the above.

SHB; the darn things are everywhere. Your only hope is full sun and strong colonies and no amount of quarantining can stop the beetle. Seriously, I am finding the little bastards in swarms.

Now I am developing an issue that might require quarantining and that is bringing newly hived cutouts and small swarms to my yard. I almost always feed cutouts and some of the small swarms just long enough to get them back on their feet while they are recovering.. This has led to some robbing issues. As my stock of strong survivor colonies grow I am going to look into setting up what I will call an ICU yard for my cut out colonies
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Offline Intheswamp

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Re: Do you quarantine your caught swarms?
« Reply #28 on: June 14, 2012, 10:18:31 am »
Ok, I'm resurrecting an older thread here.  David, thanks for that last post.  I like the idea of an ICU yard, I am considering something of the sort, or even maybe a "wild" yard where I carry swarms and cut-outs to and allow them to build up (hopefully) without a lot of beek pressure on them...within reason, of course.  My little piece of swamp has a lot of south Alabama bottom land to it so would be interesting to see how the bees do.  The area that could possibly get decent sunshine is probably only 1/8 mile from the dirt road frontage and it would need a few pines dropped to insure a fair amount of sunshine.  The problem is that that area lays on the side of a hill and would/could be seen from the road fairly easily.   I might have to set up some type of security fence on the road-side of them.

Back to the original topic...  I know I seemed to be stuck on the idea that AFB could be transported with the bees when they swarmed and still believe that even though  I've become comfortable with the idea that the possibility of that happening is small.  I was reading yesterday in the May 2012 issue of ABJ and came upon this statement by Dr. Larry Connor on page 453.  So my newbee mind wasn't so terribly "out there in left field". ;)

Risks of Swarms
   There is a small but statistically significant chance that swarms will carry spores of American foulbrood (AFB) in the honey in their stomachs.  Some beekeepers put antibiotics into the sugar syrup as a preventative.  Rather than do that, I watch the brood combs very carefully for the appearance of any diseases, eliminating the swarm if I see AFB.

Connors doesn't say anything about quarantining the swarms, though.

Anyhow, just thought I'd pass this on.
Ed
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American blood spilled to protect the freedom and peace of people all over the world.  320,000 USA casualties in WWI, 1,076,000 USA casualties in WWII, 128,000 USA casualties in the Korean War, 211,000 casualties in the Vietnam "conflict", 57,000 USA casualties in "War on Terror".  Benghazi, Libya, 13 USA casualties. These figures don't include 70,000 MIA.  But, the leaders of one political party of the United States of America continue to make the statement..."What difference does it make?".

"We can't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism."..."The press is our chief ideological weapon." - Nikita Khrushchev

"Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they wont come to yours." - Yogi Berra

Offline Lone

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Re: Do you quarantine your caught swarms?
« Reply #29 on: June 14, 2012, 11:15:17 am »
It says here that adult bees can carry AFB spores.   http://www.countryrubes.com/images/American_Foulbrood_AFB_pdf.pdf     It doesn't specify where the bee carries the spores - outside or inside the body.       It makes sense that a bee is a vector to transfer the disease.  That is one reason why open feeding of honey is illegal here.

I have also heard that SHB travel with swarms.

Anyway it does make sense to me to quarantine a swarm if you have a location for it, until there is brood you can test for AFB.  It means extra work, though.  Does anyone have experience with having AFB in a hive that was caught as a swarm?

Lone