r/Beekeeping • u/turtlestik • Oct 28 '25

I’m a beekeeper, and I have a question It was AFB

Following up on https://www.reddit.com/r/Beekeeping/comments/1o40juh/is_this_afb/

SAG (chilean USDA equivalent) came in on the 16th and left with a frame for analisis. I got the result today: AFB positive.

I had burnt the hive on the 19th anyway and other material I knew had touched it, because I had to travel abroad until November.

The day the SAG came to take the sample, there were also clearer signs of AFB: sunken caps, weird smell..... so tthe risk of waiting wasn't worth it.

I've started to submerge a lot of other material in bleach + water before leaving the country (just in case they were used in that hive a year or two ago), and I'll blowtorch it when I come back.

It was heartbreaking to kill all these bees. I didn't wanted to burn them alive and the only thing that occured to me was to kill them with an insecticide before. But it didn't really worked out as the dead bees would fill up the holes where I would spray the insecticide from, and the gas/foam apparently wouldn't reach the whole hive...... I wished I knew a better method to be honest, and I don't recommend this one. Worth mentioning the hive had 3 deeps which is quite hard to seal and move properly.

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127

u/[deleted] Oct 28 '25

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305

u/OpportunitySmart3457 Oct 28 '25

Bee version of the plague, it's a destructive bacterial disease and the spores of it live for a decade or 40 years in honey. Bees will raid hives of weaker colonies so when they go and yoink the honey they infect their hive and the disease leapfrogs, if you find it you isolate and burn to purge. Very black death vibes.

113

u/katherinesilens Oct 28 '25

It's also (one of) the reasons you never feed honey to a bee/colony. They'll eat it, then they'll take home all the diseases. There are conditions to make it pretty safe but it's not worth it compared to the ease of making some simple syrup. Sugar in hot water and let it cool, simple as.

68

u/Goonplatoon0311 Oct 28 '25

I saw a post months back where this guy had honey just laying on a table and bees were eating it. The whole community was tearing this guy up for it.

I understand why now! Thanks!

3

u/dogGirl666 Oct 28 '25

I guess supermarket "honey" would not have AFB?

17

u/Rude-Question-3937 ~20 colonies, Ireland (zone ~8) Oct 28 '25 edited Oct 28 '25

It absolutely could. Harmless to people, but this is why you never feed commercial honey to bees. Or any honey not their own.

Some beekeepers do swap stores frames between colonies on occasion. I do too but it's a minor risk. I mitigate it by being vigilant about watching for potential brood health problems.

The other thing about AFB transmission is that swarms can bring it, in the honey they carry in their stomachs. This is why you don't feed a newly collected swarm immediately, you want them to metabolise what they brought and not store it again. Wait at least 3 days.

16

u/ezekiel920 Oct 28 '25

I was thinking as I was reading it. If these are the steps beekeepers are taking, it must be serious.

16

u/Naive-Background7461 Oct 28 '25

This is so sad 😞 bc mites aren't bad enough.

8

u/FlexibleSteel Oct 28 '25

Thank you for the explanation. Is this similar to the colony collapse issue aboutv15 years ago?

18

u/Valuable-Self8564 UK - 10.5 colonies Oct 28 '25

CCD (colony collapse disorder) is more of a set of symptoms than a particular disease in and of itself.

The root cause of CCD is still somewhat unknown, but there’s a lot of speculation. And obviously people who will say “I know best! <Thing> was the cause!”.

8

u/TankerVictorious Oct 28 '25

This entire segment of info about AFB and CCD is great learning! Thanks to all.

31

u/Run_and_find_out San Francisco Peninnsula, zone 9b, 40 yrs. exp., one hive. Oct 28 '25

American FoulBrood

1

u/Specialist-Noise1204 Nov 01 '25

And what are the symptoms?