I have two eight frame hives that had efb so bad that i had to treat with terramycin for control. They now show no sign of efb. But, i am uneasy about keeping these combs. My plans are to shake the bees into a two queen, Taylor type hive on foundation. then i will burn the old combs. I have all my sc & natural cell on 8 fr. hives. Efb in one of each, natural cell & sc foundation. I needed a winter project so i shaved my new frames, for this hive, down to 1 1/4 in. end bars & 7/8 top bars. I will use sc foundation in this hive. Follower boards for the sides. At the end of honey flow i will put each one in a 8 fr deep hive & feed. crazy or what?
EFB if a result of the hive health. Bad queens or stress on the hive. Don't need burning. Most requeen the hive to break the brood cycle and feed them.
3 treatments with tyland will clear it up. they will be fine
These hives have been treated & requeened and show no sign of efb, but, efb has a nasty ability to return the next year. not every time , just some times. This yard has a flair up every 4 or 5 years. It is a pain to keep equipmeht seperate from other yards.
EFB is not a spore forming bacteria. If they have none it shouldn't be an issue. A break in brood rearing generally clears things up.
http://bushfarms.com/beespests.htm#efb (http://bushfarms.com/beespests.htm#efb)
Quote from: bud1 on January 14, 2011, 09:52:20 AM
3 treatments with tyland will clear it up. they will be fine
tylan wont cure EFB-only AFB-when tylan became the new antibiotic for resistant
strains of AFB (resistant to terimyacin)-there was a big up tick of EFB among those that started using it
RDY-B
Thank you all for your input. One of these hives has had efb 2 times, & never made a good crop of honey. I thought, because the combs were getting some age on them, the shook swarms would give me a way to cull the old combs. I feel that the spores of efb can carry over in winter honey. I have no proof of this, just a gut feeling.
I should have written bacteria in honey instead of spores. sorry
Quote from: kdm on January 15, 2011, 09:16:20 AM
Thank you all for your input. One of these hives has had efb 2 times, & never made a good crop of honey. I thought, because the combs were getting some age on them, the shook swarms would give me a way to cull the old combs. I feel that the spores of efb can carry over in winter honey. I have no proof of this, just a gut feeling.
Did you replace the queen after the 1st go around? To cure EFB it is not only necessary to treat with Tylan or Tetramyacine (sp?) to squelch the initial outbreak but to replace the queen in a way that interrupts the brood cycle to remove a reoccurance.
Highly stressed bees and queen will usually be found prior to an EFB outbreak. One tell tale sign is a gentle hive going postal, the cure for that is requeening also.
Brian i know what you & others are telling me is the correct methods for efb. I am just tired of dealing with this hive. Last year the hive next to it got infected, i assume from drifting. I can't take a chance of it spreding any more. This hive had a slight infection afew years ago. They cleaned up with treatment & requeening. Two years later it comes back. The same treatment cleanes it up again. Three years later, Last spring it comes back very strong I treated & gave it two frames of brood & bees, replaced the queen with a ripe queen cell. It cleaned up again, but not before infecting its neighbor. Something is wrong with this hive. This is one of the few times i have treated any of my hives. I don't know if it is a chemical build up in the combs, efb in winter honey, or something else. I think the best thing is to shake the bees on fondation & destroy the combs.
With that type of history you are probably right. If you have any drawn combs left from extracting I would shake the bees onto those so as not to ease the shock they will recieve on the transfer.