Foulbrood Inspection

As you'll have read in the last couple of entries, both American Foul Brood and European foul brood were found in our area recently. It was a local bee farmer who has apiaries all over the place and who moves his hives around a lot that first contracted (or first noticed) the diseases. Both diseases are notifiable, i.e. it's an offence not to report them, and can devestate colonies. In fact if your hive is found to have American Foul Brood there is nothing to be done and the hive - boxes, combs, and bees - must be burned.

This morning our communal apiary was inspected by a Bee Inspector. Only Dad and I, our neighbour who is new to beekeeping, the Inspector and our association secretary turned up. We started off going through Jayne's hive - everything OK. We then moved on to the nucs and hive that Dad and I keep in the communal apiary and we came across a few hitches - one of our nucs was a frame short, so they'd built a lot of brace comb; one nuc had some chalkbrood (easily sorted by keeping them on mesh floors and making sure the hive is well ventilated); another nuc is queenless (well, a while ago they hatched out a new queen but she didn't get mated). There was one heart stopping moment when the Inspector found a dead larvae in one hive, but fortunately it didn't "rope" like AFB does, and as the cappings looked healthy and there was no other sign of disease we were given the all clear.

Jayne then left but Dad and I stayed on to help out and learn from the experts as the Inspector and our secretary went through the other hives in the apiary. It was fairly nosy of us, but it was a good opportunity to see how other people manage their bees. Here and there we saw queen cells that needed knocking down; someone had put their frames together wrongly; another hive swarmed right in front of our eyes! I'd never seen anything like it before - the bees clustered on the front of the hive to start with, before flying around in a huge cloud all over the field, and eventually they moved upwards and clustered on a branch - too high up to catch, but hopefully they'll relocate and populate one of the new beekeepers' hives - I know one or two of them are desperate to get on with keeping real live bees!

There was one colony with a heavy chalkbrood infestation but otherwise every hive seemed healthy - I worry a bit that if your bees swarm and you don't know about it, you aren't checking them regularly enough, but fortunately there were very few problems. That is, until we had worked our way down to the last few hives.

Up until now the Inspector had been complimenting us on the temperaments of everyone's bees and the condition of the equipment. The boxes were shocking. Old, black...they just looked unhygenic and unloved. One of them was just a atsack of empty boxes but it was open to the bees and being robbed out. We also found a whopping great hornet inside - we definitely don't want to encourage those! Our secretary chopped it in half with his hive tool and the front half ran off into the grass.

The other two boxes, apparently all owned by the same person (who was conveniently anonymous) were just as bad, if not worse. The bees were really angry, the angriest in the apiary. The coverboards were NAILED DOWN (so presumably they haven't checked for disease etc. once in who knows how long); everything was propolysed up and was so old the propolys was black; the entrance had been nailed up on one of them too and so the bees were getting in through holes at each corner. There was no QX in one of them and not enough frames, so there was just wild comb everywhere...in short, it was absolute chaos. There was no way for the Inspector to inspect them properly. Evetually he managed to take a sample and test it for EFB - luckily (and it was 100% luck - the care of the beekeeper was non existent and had nothing to do with the fortunate outcome) it was negative. Personally I would have torched the lot then and there.

Above: knackered old box full of wild comb - absolutely impossible to inspect in any detail.

So. At the end of the inspection, we know that we're currently in the clear with regards to fouldbrood. But it looks like our secretary will be implementing some new rules - not being able to identify the owner of each hive really hampered the inspection. And the last three hives! Urgh, I feel another rant coming on.



What I think is where a lot of people fall down - and this goes for small scale beekeepers like the owner of those appalling hives at our apiary and for the bee farmers in America who are always moaning about "CCD" - is that we often see bees as different from other animals. We don't see them as pets, we don't see them as livestock. We often see them as a separate thing, because they're not cuddly (though I would argue that they're still cute). True, they're not fully domesticated, and so they're slightly different to the cows, sheep and chickens we keep (though I would argue here that Exmoor ponies etc. are not fully domesticated yet they are treated with the utmost respect and enthusiasm by the people who monitor and care for them). But to me, the beekeeper has the same responsibility to his bees as the farmer or smallholder has to his pigs and poultry. They're livestock. We keep them to make useful products - and whether the animal produces milk or meat or wool or honey, we still have the same duty of care. All these animals need safe, waterproof places to shelter; they need food and water; they need to be kept in social groups; and they need to be looked after so they don't get ill. So many beekeepers fail to provide one or more of these basic things, whether that's through letting the bees starve during the June gap (something which yes, even I have been guilty of, but I like to think that I've learned from that now) or keeping them in the crappiest old woodworm-ridden rotting boxes that aren't even fit for firewood. To me, if you repeatedly abuse or neglect the animals you're supposed to be looking after, and take no steps to improve your practice and knowledge and alter your behaviour, the RSPCA can come along and prosecute you. And I think this should apply to bees too. End of rant.