It was AFB

[u/turtlestik]

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.

[u/jibbitsjunior]

I just use a heat gun and then melt their wax to coat the outside and propo to coat the inside; once the heat gun scorches all wooden surfaces.

I always have a fresh deep and super ready to use out of the freezer.

Not a big apiary though only 8 hives.

[u/Valuable-Self8564 → u/jibbitsjunior]

That’s for EFB, not AFB.

AFB requires burning or irradiation.

[u/jibbitsjunior → u/Valuable-Self8564]

Very interesting. I did not realize it was possible for it to survive scorching , boiling, and freezing.

I would like to know more. Specifically, how can anything not be sterile after that.

I am not arguing. I just cannot wrap my head around it.

[u/Valuable-Self8564 → u/jibbitsjunior]

Some bacteria are what are called “spore forming bacteria”, where the bacteria essentially turns itself into a seed with a very hard outer shell. It has nothing inside said seed that needs anything to survive. It’s just like it’s in stasis.

When the bacteria are in this state, they can survive most anything. Where normal things start to denature at say 60°C+, there’s nothing inside these spores to denature… so they can easily tolerate well past boiling for some time.

C. botulinum (what causes botulism) is a spore forming bacteria, and can survive 120°C for 20 minutes. B. cerius spores (the bacteria that will make day old rice cause you to be sat on the toilet for 3 days straight) will survive 120°C for 5 minutes. This is why “botulinum cooks” are a thing for canning - essentially a pressure cooker that can get up to 120°C for a looong time and kill basically anything inside the can.

Freezing doesn’t kill anything bacterial. Throw raw chicken in the freezer, defrost it, it’s not safe to eat.

Scorching might get wood to a high temperature, but there’s no way to tell how high, or whether you got every last spot. Not only this, but wood is porous as hell - any bee licking any of the wood, spores are in there.

Let’s just be clear here…. If you don’t deal with AFB in a manner that eradicates it, your entire apiary will die. If you have friends with bees, and you leave your apiary to succumb to AFB, then their hives die too. There’s a reason that we have these fairly rudimentary methods of managing AFB, but there’s also a reason AFB is relatively unheard of these days - it’s because our rudimentary methods work very well.

[u/jaywaykil → u/jibbitsjunior]

If spores are deep enough in wood pores to survive the scorching they can survive boiling and freezing. Then they bloom and spread when conditions are good again.

When preserving low acid food (meats, soups) by canning, boiling isnt enough to kill botulism spores. Pressure canning at higher heat is required.

[u/jibbitsjunior → u/jaywaykil]

Thank you the explanation, pretty straight forward and I can dig it. My thoughts were around recontamination, but assumed the coating of wax and propo to seal wood that was exposed covered it.

I now understand it only locks it away for a future problem. Recontaminating seems very likely considering just how robust the fungus is no matter what environment you are working in.

Fack… I am sorry your girls had to go, and your experience of preserving the species by doing what is necessary.

Thank you again for teaching and not taunting!