EFB in my hives - Ask Extension
I have been doing beekeeping for about 14 years. Just backyard beekeeping with about 1-10 hives for enjoyment. I have never had to deal with any of th...
Knowledgebase
EFB in my hives #869252
Asked May 20, 2024, 12:40 PM EDT
I have been doing beekeeping for about 14 years. Just backyard beekeeping with about 1-10 hives for enjoyment. I have never had to deal with any of the major diseases. A professional friend of mine is retiring and sold me 12 of his hives. I now have EFB in my splits (the weaker hives that had the queen cells). I now recall him talking to me in the past about his treatments of EFB. I am concerned because I am not a professional and I dont have the resources to purchase all new equipment for the hives in my apiary. Right now, I have 7 double box hives with supers (the ones I bought from him), 10 single box hives, 3 nucs and 2 top bar hives. He told me to do antibiotics, I have researched probiotics etc. I watched your webinar from 6 months ago and learned a lot. Its good there are no spores but it does last a long time. That is my biggest concern. I have been able to keep my hives healthy and disease free all this time. It has been a joy. I dont want to have to deal with this disease for years to come. What can I do that doesnt require me to spend a ton of money on all new equipment? How can I get rid of it and keep my hives? I am open options and to helping find a solution.
Washington County Utah
Expert Response
I'm sorry that you now are dealing with EFB, because it is not fun to have in your operation. There is no single right answer, but I can give you some options to consider.
First, ideally you would be practicing good biosecurity when you bring in bees from another location, meaning that they are in a separate yard, out of flight distance from your clean bees. I would do everything to keep your two operations separate. I'm going to use clean and dirty just as terms to clarify, where clean are the bees that have never had EFB, and dirty are those that did.
If you are equipment/ financially limited, or if you were in an area with a high chance of re-infection (which it sounds like you aren't since you haven't had to deal with it yet), you can control the disease with antibiotics. You'll work with a vet for access, and then apply them in the early spring, so you are done with your application in time for full withdrawl before they make honey.
A second option is to try to eradicate it a little at a time (this is the method we are trialing at MSU this year - we have a veterinary student studying this. In this case you would have three yards - your old clean bees (old clean), your dirty yard (dirty), and a new yard (new clean). Shake half the bees in the dirty yard onto brand new equipment in the spring, and put the old equipment on the dirty hives. For example, if you have 8 hives in the yard, all in 2 deeps, you would shake the bees from four hives into deeps with foundation, and take the old equipment and put it on the remaining dirty hives. Move the newly shook bees into a new yard, and give antibiotics. Next year, do the same thing, making sure that equipment never goes into the clean yards from the dirty yards. Eventually, you would shake the dirty yard onto new equipment, and discard those frames.
Keep in mind that even in absence of signs of disease we recommend replacing 20% of comb, so this is a way to do it strategically.
We will share our results next year when our trial is over, but there are a lot of data that shook swarms work well for bacterial disease control.
First, ideally you would be practicing good biosecurity when you bring in bees from another location, meaning that they are in a separate yard, out of flight distance from your clean bees. I would do everything to keep your two operations separate. I'm going to use clean and dirty just as terms to clarify, where clean are the bees that have never had EFB, and dirty are those that did.
If you are equipment/ financially limited, or if you were in an area with a high chance of re-infection (which it sounds like you aren't since you haven't had to deal with it yet), you can control the disease with antibiotics. You'll work with a vet for access, and then apply them in the early spring, so you are done with your application in time for full withdrawl before they make honey.
A second option is to try to eradicate it a little at a time (this is the method we are trialing at MSU this year - we have a veterinary student studying this. In this case you would have three yards - your old clean bees (old clean), your dirty yard (dirty), and a new yard (new clean). Shake half the bees in the dirty yard onto brand new equipment in the spring, and put the old equipment on the dirty hives. For example, if you have 8 hives in the yard, all in 2 deeps, you would shake the bees from four hives into deeps with foundation, and take the old equipment and put it on the remaining dirty hives. Move the newly shook bees into a new yard, and give antibiotics. Next year, do the same thing, making sure that equipment never goes into the clean yards from the dirty yards. Eventually, you would shake the dirty yard onto new equipment, and discard those frames.
Keep in mind that even in absence of signs of disease we recommend replacing 20% of comb, so this is a way to do it strategically.
We will share our results next year when our trial is over, but there are a lot of data that shook swarms work well for bacterial disease control.
