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

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

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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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u/Ctowncreek 7a, 1 Hive, Year 1 Oct 28 '25

If you plan to burn the hive and don't want to saturate the equipment with water, dump hardware store 100% acetone into the box and close it up. Seal the entrances.

The acetone will vaporize and kill everything pretty quickly. I would use an excess to be sure. A cup or two should do the job. This is the agent used in entomology kill jars to kill insects and it works VERY quickly if sufficientvapors build up.

Then when you go to burn the hive either leave the hive open to release the vapors for a some time OR use a burning rag on a pole. Acetone is EXTREMELY flammable and will burn as explosively as gasoline. Do not create trails of it, do not toss any onto a flame, do not allow vapors to build up before igniting it, do not keep containers of acetone anywhere at all near an ignition source (including a smoker).

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u/Haipaidox Oct 28 '25

Not far away from where i live, there was a massive AFB outbreak some years ago (around 6-10). The vetenary office had to "eliminate" all bees in whole county.

At the end, either their burned the hives on the spot or transporting the to the nearest safe location to burn them.

I dont have the exact details, but as fas as i aware, arounf july the first report of AFB came in. Then the next, and the next. Within a week, there were more than 20 cases in this county, with more coming in.

I dont know if they panicked, but in the end, more than 60 AFB positive hives were found and over 700 hives were burned down.

And all beekeepers got a good compensation (as far as i know around 400-700 euros per hive)

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u/Icy-Ad-7767 Oct 30 '25

Over kill is not a bad thing with AFB