Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => DISEASE & PEST CONTROL => Topic started by: Acebird on December 15, 2010, 11:00:22 am
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Anybody ever hear of using a rotton banana to control chauckbrood? People in my club say it works like a charm. You have to be suited up because it really pee'd off the bees.
I did a search on this forum but didn't get any hits.
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Down here that would be a SHB lure.
Scott
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From my understanding of the banana smell and beehives it would be you taking all the hits and not the search engine when you placed it on there.
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yup!
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They didn't give you detailed instructions on how to catch that snipe too, did they? :-D
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Sorry I don't get the joke.
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Scadsobees;
They didn't give you detailed instructions on how to catch that snipe too, did they? grin
Sorry I don't get the joke.
He's a engineer you have too explain it very very carefully !! :roll:
Bee-Bop
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snipe hunting is almost a lost art. :(
by what mechanism does the banana control the chalkbrood?
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kathyp;
snipe hunting is almost a lost art. Sad
It's all the fault of those durn plastic shopping bags, snipes wont have any thing to do with them ! :shock:
Then again maybe, a rotten banana in a plastic bag might work ? :? :?
Bee-Bop
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I found this:
http://www.hgsc.bcm.tmc.edu/projects/microbial/documents/review_Chalkb.pdf (http://www.hgsc.bcm.tmc.edu/projects/microbial/documents/review_Chalkb.pdf)
Start on page 13, this caught my eye:
In the USA the management of honeybee colonies
The banana starts on page 14.
Beek member claimed he had a hive amongst other hives that had chalkbrood for four years. Local guru said throw in a rotten banana and stand back. Two weeks later no evidence of chalkbrood. It is not scientific but for the cost of a rotton banana that could be laying in the woods anyway what would you choose, the banana or a pound of toxic chemicals? It's a no brain-er for me.
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i don't know any chemicals that work for chalkbrood. most of the time it's self limiting. don't see that it could do any harm....
bee-bop, default to the pillow case.
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The ever illusive snipe....tastes good with a red wine sauce :-D
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I would not feel good about placing a banana anywhere near my beehives. The banana smell is their alarm pheromone and I would think it might upset them to constantly have that smell on top of them.
Also I thought chaulkbrood was a problem mostly due to ventilation?? Doesn't it clear up pretty easily??
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Bananas(Dole) are treated with thiabendazole and/or imazalil or azoxystrobin which I think are fungicides. Might there be enough residual material left in the peelings to cure chaulkbrood?
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The banana smell is their alarm pheromone and I would think it might upset them to constantly have that smell on top of them.
Yes, this is what they said. I was also told they devourer it, not much left.
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Sorry I don't get the joke.
It almost sounds like a prank they'd pull on the new greenie beekeeper..."put a banana on and stand nearby and watch it work!!"
:-D
Like Kathy said...it usually is self limiting, and anybody that had it bad in a hive should be kicked because re-queening is the best cure after a few months of it. I wonder if the banana induces the hive to supercede the queen - that would cure it.
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I guess the results would depend on if it was an organically grown banana fertilized with all natural monkey poo or one of those wretched Monsanto chemical laden ones :evil:
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I guess the results would depend on if it was an organically grown banana fertilized with all natural monkey poo or one of those wretched Monsanto chemical laden ones :evil:
Hard to figure who is friend or foe on this site but you hit the nail on the head.
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friend or foe? must we choose sides?
chalkbrood is USUALLY self limiting. i have lost a hive to it in spite of things like requeening. it grows were conditions are good for fungus, and that would be here! in places where moisture is less, and the hive can be ventilated, it is usually self limiting. i also read a couple of reports about getting the temp up in the hive which would probably preclude the ventilating part.....i did close one hive except for small entrance, i hottest part of summer. the chalkbrood cleared up, but i have no idea if the heat in the hive was the reason.
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Beek member claimed he had a hive amongst other hives that had chalkbrood for four years.
Sorry, Kathy, I was referring to this situation, not yours or any particular one here. Maybe that reported episode was a very low-grade case, but this situation seems suspect. I would take that story with a grain or salt...4 years is a long time to endure that in a hive.
Usually increased hygeine amongst the bees will cure, which is why requeening works for long-term cases - they get the problems out sooner before the fungus can spread. The humidity and weather gets it going, but if the bees can keep on top of it, it isn't such a problem.
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If banana peels have insecticides in/on them, how can all them blank-blank NATS live off of them ??
They sure as blank don't die !
Any body got an answer ?
Bee-Bop
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i have lost a hive to it in spite of things like requeening.
So next time you are going to try the banana, requeen or give up cuss you live in Oregon? Oregon is not the only place in the country that is damp.
I would take that story with a grain or salt...4 years is a long time to endure that in a hive.
Although the guru was not present at the meeting to confirm the story I can’t for the life of me think of why the guy would lie to me especially when others in the group said “yeah that is what Bill said to do”.
To me it looks like four choices:
Let is self limit
Requeen
Blast it with chemicals
Try the banana
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there is damp....and then there is wet.... ;)
i have had chalkbrood a number of times. only one hive was lost, but it is damaging to the population. don't know what i'll do next time, but i'll try to remember to let you know.
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i have lost a hive to it in spite of things like requeening.
So next time you are going to try the banana, requeen or give up cuss you live in Oregon? Oregon is not the only place in the country that is damp.
I would take that story with a grain or salt...4 years is a long time to endure that in a hive.
Although the guru was not present at the meeting to confirm the story I can’t for the life of me think of why the guy would lie to me especially when others in the group said “yeah that is what Bill said to do”.
To me it looks like four choices:
Let is self limit
Requeen
Blast it with chemicals
Try the banana
theres a fith choices-- :lol: find a new club-anyway Banana pell is key ingredient in wax moth trap-wont help chalk-tell them that you gave your bees Bleach in the sryup and it cleared it up -that will not hurt threre bees but it will turn them BLUE- 8-) RDY-B
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theres a fith choices-- find a new club-anyway Banana pell is key ingredient in wax moth trap-wont help chalk-tell them that you gave your bees Bleach in the sryup and it cleared it up -that will not hurt threre bees but it will turn them BLUE- RDY-B
Sorry I can't make any sense of your post. The little faces look good though.
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what part dont you understand your fith choice or the blue bees
glad you like the characterization-RDY-B
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I have seen bananas used in the hive first hand. as a matter of fact, I helped the guy who swore by it, put them in his hives.
I helped him do it once a year for 3 years and none of those times did the bees get any more aggressive than they normally might, which is to say, as long as we were nice, they were.
he always put the squishy going soft bananas cut into pieces either directly on the frames or on top of inner cover.
I have never put them inside my own hives, but I have put bananas out in a location that were in same condition (well over 100 yards from bee yard) and as they get soft and decay, the sugars and moisture are visible and attract all kinds of insects. If and when the bees find them, they take over and cloud the whole area sucking up the sweet liquid.
He claimed putting the bananas was for a feed source but also generally claimed it kept them bees healthy. Mind you, this was an 70 some year old farm boy who had been doing this most of his life. I couldn't tell you if there is any science about it, but as he told me, "science can only tell you what it is, not why."
anyway, that's about all I can say on the topic.
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maybe its the same guy 8-) heres the direction for the wax moth trap
banana pell is key ingredient ;) RDY-B
Take a 2 litre plastic pop bottle and drill a 1 inch hole just below the slope on the neck, then add 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 1 half cup vinegar and finally 1 banana peel. Wait a few days till it starts to ferment, then tie it into a tree close to the hives. This trap will draw the wax moth, they enter the hole can't get out and drown in the liquid, this will even draw in and kill the bald faced hornet.
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not likely. the old boy I helped is now retired and lives in Arizona where his wife has forbid him any more bees. it's killing him slowly I think. Poor fella.
it's a notion still kept around by old timer s like him though. I would expect the rural beeks with a number of years into it would likely know more about it.
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probably just as good for him -Arizona has pockets of AHB-anyway i suppose back in the day the best jokes where
the simple and most obvious-and i suppose even back then some didn't get the joke and took it all the way to there carers end-no harm in that-most of these are a right of pasage from clever keepers-im sure you have a few tricks up your sleve aswell for the new breed-RDY-B
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ya just never know. ;)
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I always break in a new carpenters helper by sending him to the rental place to "fetch me a board stretcher".
Scott
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I need one of those board stretchers. I cut a board this week 3 times and it was still to short. Maybe I can fond one on Ebay.
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I started working with my father when I was 6 years old. The first year was just learning what the tools names were and what they were used for. Once I master that, my job was to hand him the right tool for the job as he needed it like a nurse would do for a surgeon. Once that was mastered I was then allowed to use the tools (dull ones first) under his careful eye. However many times he would let me make a mistake even though he knew what I was doing was wrong. He told me the mark of a good carpenter was how well you could cover your mistakes.
New construction was a cake walk. "Working on old building especially after someone had already botched it up separates the men from the boys," he said.
He always had a sense of humor. If you cut a board too short he would say. ”That is better than cutting it too long because you would have to cut it again. This way here you just scab a piece on.” If you did it a second time it was not so humorous.
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thank you for the insight- :tumbleweed:-RDY-B
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I started working with my father when I was 6 years old. The first year was just learning what the tools names were and what they were used for. Once I master that, my job was to hand him the right tool for the job as he needed it like a nurse would do for a surgeon. Once that was mastered I was then allowed to use the tools (dull ones first) under his careful eye. However many times he would let me make a mistake even though he knew what I was doing was wrong. He told me the mark of a good carpenter was how well you could cover your mistakes.
New construction was a cake walk. "Working on old building especially after someone had already botched it up separates the men from the boys," he said.
He always had a sense of humor. If you cut a board too short he would say. ”That is better than cutting it too long because you would have to cut it again. This way here you just scab a piece on.” If you did it a second time it was not so humorous.
That's a nice story :)
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Southern fools! If you want to catch a snipe you have to have a hammer and a can of peas. But you can make a tasty bread with the banana to eat with your snipe.
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:piano: :-D -RDY-B
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I can take you on a snipe hunt, but first you have to get me a left-handed smoke shifter.
JC
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I remember snipe hunting in the boy scouts. soooo
When and if you're snipe hunting, they look like this, your state may even have a season for them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe)
(http://lh6.ggpht.com/_x09rOsVjeOY/TSyG_vQfU1I/AAAAAAAAASI/74WqMZhYjQ8/s800/SnipeWNmd.jpg)
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Dave Miksa, a pretty well known queen producer, recommended this at a meeting I attended. He recommended the banana be split and laid on the top bars. Haven't tried it myself.
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Was it specifically for chaulk brood or the general health of the hive?
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Was it specifically for chaulk brood or the general health of the hive?
its for the snipe to eat -- ;) RDY-B
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:lau:
Good one.
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this came up in a conversation with a Florida bee inspector the other day. according to him, it is not the banana, it is the fungicide that the banana is treated with. the info from him is that the banana has to be from South Amercia (as they don't use the same fungicide here...he did not specify the name of the fungicide).
of course the bees need to grow fungus as well (it is how they produce necessary sterols), and as far as i know, no one has looked at the possible (and likely) downsides.
deknow
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I feel quit pleased that our bees made it through the winter when everyone else is having bad luck. There should not be any fungicide on the banana that I gave them because we eat only organic bananas. Up until today the bees were only using the top entrance. I see today that they have unblocked another entrance that was sealed up in the first deep and some are using that. There appears to be very few bees using the actual bottom entrance.
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I lot of beekeepers in Melbourne, Australia say it works.
I put a banana in the top of a hive with chalk brood about a fortnight ago (yes it did seem silly - and looked silly on the hive mat), as well as feeding some suger water laced with Lemon Scented Tea Tree essential oil (about 0.1% - one part per thousand). Problem has eased a lot from seeing tens fo mummies each day to only one or two every other day. Last time I opened the hive I misted with a 1:1 sugar syrup with 0.1% oil again in a spray bottle so it would get on the frames in case there were spores left on the frames. The oil has been found effective in scientific testinig: see 'Control of chalkbrood disease with natural products' A report for the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation by Dr Craig Davis and Wendy Ward (sorry there is no link, but the site wouldn't let me put the link in - google will find it with this info if you want to read it). Interestingly banana essence was not found to be effective, but the researchers said:
There is some anecdotal evidence in Australia that banana fruit placed in hives is an effective control for chalkbrood. Our research has failed to find any inhibitory action of banana extract when it is incorporated into an in vitro culture system. Any beneficial effect that banana fruit placed within the hive might have in controlling or reducing the severity of chalkbrood would most probably arise from volatiles evolved by the fruit. It is not inconceivable that the fruit might evolve one or more volatile compounds that are inhibitory to the spore germination or mycelial growth of the causal fungus A. apis. Such fungistatic or fungitoxic/fungicidal volatiles might be the normal products of fruit metabolism or the products of microbial degradation of the fruit as it senesces. The banana fruit contains at least 200 individual volatile components (Palmer, 1971). Many more volatile compounds, including fermentation products, could arise from microbial action (Sureh and Ethiraj, 1991). Fermentation products (ethanol and acetaldehyde) have been shown to inhibit mould growth on oranges (Yuen et al., 1995).
My italians couldn't care less about the banana, and the syrup with essential oil really perks them up - they love it more than straight syrup. At present I am happy to leave the banana in there: it's doing no harm, and it is plausible that it could be helping with the gas it emits as it goes off :-D
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I usually do nothing for chalkbrood. Next time I come back it's usually gone...