East
Central Iowa Beekeepers Association
Minutes
from March 11, 2019
In
attendance: 47
President
Dave Irvin --The
meeting was called to order at 6:30.
Dave
began the meeting by recognizing a number of new attendees. We’re
always glad to see fresh faces getting involved in beekeeping,
He
acknowledged support from various members of the club in helping with
the organization.
Paul
Gardner—Paul
is again selling package bees from Georgia. He will be making two
deliveries, on April 20th
and May 10th
at his property near Homestead. Call Paul at 319-400-4228 to order
bees ($120) or visit his facebook page, Preciousbees. Paul is also
selling complete, assembled and painted hives (less bees) for $250.
Floyd
Otdoerfer—Floyd
recognized James Miller, who showed nuc boxes he has made from plans
that will produce 4 boxes from a sheet of plywood. James also showed
a swarm box, which is essentially a modified nuc box, only 18 inches
deep. James pointed out that swarms prefer a location that has space
where they can draw their own comb, so suggests using an empty frame
with just a starter strip, coated with melted beeswax and even coat
around inside the hive. James offered plans for people to take.
--Floyd
gave information about the upcoming Field Day event, which will be
held at the Iowa State Horticulture Research Center in Ames on June
15th.
State apiarist Andy Joseph will perform an on-site hive inspection
and a fair judge will be there talking about fair entries.
--Jim
Davis mentioned an upcoming event at Terry Trueblood Recreation area
called Earth Fest, April 27th.
Our club will be represented there, doing bee related activities
with kids.
Andy
Joseph—Andy
is the state apiarist, who works for the Dept. of Agriculture. Andy
talked about two primary topics—European Foulbrood and Winter
Loss.
He
began his talk with discussion about attending a meeting in Mt.
Pleasant where attendees talked about significant winter losses,
except for one individual who had success overwintering bees. This
person lives in a part of the state that was much drier last fall
than most of the state. Andy summed up by referencing a Randy Oliver
article (Scientific Beekeeping) about “fat bees”, which stressed
the importance of going into winter with a couple generations of
healthy bees, with good fat stores. He also talked about those who
send bees to the almond groves in California, that some have done
well while others have sustained as much as 60% loss. In the
laboratory, Andy examined dead hives looking for answers to the
losses. The outstanding indicator was an extremely high nosema spore
count, as high as 42 times what would be considered an acceptable
threshold. He pointed out that the nosema count by itself cannot be
seen as the main culprit but that there could have been contributing
stress factors that lead to the high incidence of nosema. A
positive side of the tough winter we’ve experienced is that it may
have brought a healthier group of bees through the bottleneck that
the winter provided and the surviving bees may help create stronger
strains. That remains to be seen.
European
Foulbrood--
Historically, EFB, a bacterial infection, has been seen as a
background concern for beekeepers. It has been present, but not
anywhere near the concern as with nosema, American Foulbrood, or
mites. The past 3 years has seen a big increase in EFB. Doing
inspections for 11 years, most of the time Andy did not observe any
cases of EFB though every year would see some cases of AFB. He has
been seeing the disease appear in the latter part of May, about the
time splits are being made and queens are being grafted. Dandelions
are blooming and beekeepers are feeling things are going well. Then
perhaps there has been a change in the weather, cool and rainy, and
bees are more contained and the disease occurs. Management can help
by making sure bees continue to have feed and nutrition in this early
period when they are still vulnerable.
Identification:
Unlike AFB, caps on pupa appear norm. The larva is attacked in EFB
rather than the pupa. There will be a very spotty pattern of capped
brood, almost a shotgun appearance. The larva may look shriveled,
looking almost like a small, deflated mandarin orange slice. You
may notice white lines on the larva, which are breathing tubes.
Looking at very young larva, the normal, milky white fluid
surrounding the larva may appear yellowish or off-color. The queen
will continue to be laying, so you will notice a wide range of ages
on a frame rather than the more typical evenness in a laying pattern.
Once the larva survives to the capping stage, the bee will likely
survive. The hive will not be booming in numbers, however, and will
continue to struggle to grow. If you are noticing unusual brood
patterns and condition late May/early June, management needs to be
undertaken to help the hive. As you examine the hive, you need to be
aware that there may be multiple things happening instead of just
EFB, so a careful analysis of what you are seeing in the hive is
important. Varroa infection at a high level can appear to be EFB, so
continue to monitor for varroa and treat, treat, treat.
Andy
recommends checking out https://beeinformed.org/ on the internet,
where a lot of good information can be found. This organization does
annual surveys, which can be quite long, but uses that data to make
correlations about beekeeping management practices. From the data,
one can discern information about many diseases and issues in many
areas.
Treatment:
Care
and cleanliness are important. EFB is a bacterial disease and can be
spread through contact, from gloves, hive tools, etc. Alcohol wash
can be used to clean tools. If you notice problems with one hive,
use extra caution with exposing healthy hives.
Brood
break and re-queening can help the hive recover by removing the queen
so nurse bees are not continuing to spread the infection within the
hive. A week or so can make a big difference, and especially during
a dry spell and a honey flow the hive can rebound. Take early steps
so you don’t miss out on the main flow.
Antibiotic
treatment can be an option for hives with a significant problem.
Remember that now in Iowa you need to have a relationship with a vet
to be able to purchase the antibiotic. Be sure you do not have honey
supers on when using these chemicals.
Can
freezing frames kill off the bacteria? Probably not, and if there
are frames that are suspect it is probably best to destroy them.
Andy stressed the importance of annually removing some of your
frames. A rule of thumb is to cull out two frames from each brood
box annually. This is a small cost for the beekeeper compared to the
cost of replacing a colony.
Questions
were asked about nosema and should we be expecting to see an increase
this spring. More cases of nosema ceranae are being seen. Ceranae
apis is the variety that has been seen for years, which produces the
dysentary one sees on the frames and around the hive. The chemical
Fumagilin B, which had been the default treatment for years, is no
longer allowed. Andy feels a new product may be on the horizon. A
USDA study found no significant difference in long ter Both forms of
nosema can be treated on a frame by exposing it to sunlight on each
side for a day. Sunlight will kill the spores. If you have a hive
that is suspect, you can send Andy a sample of 25 bees to be examined
for nosema.
Winter
Loss: Some
amount of loss is acceptable (20 to 25% annually) which can easily be
made up. Winter losses are easy to identify. Summer losses can be
much harder to identify, because we may combine weak hives, we split
hives, etc. Those are harder to tally up but we may see as much as
one-third of our losses in warm seasons.
Mite
treatments are essential, especially going into winter. Cold can be
an issue but cold and moisture is very deadly. Mold and mildew can
indicate a moisture issue. Management that includes proper
ventilation is important. Feeding to make sure hives have enough
stores going into winter is also important. Monitoring throughout
the winter for feed and hive weight is becoming increasingly
important. Watch for late season starvation. Warm temps and brood
explosion means a lot of energy is being generated and so bees will
be using more feed. Make sure they continue to have enough food
throughout the spring, especially if there is a late wet period when
the bees are not able to be out flying. Natural beekeeping, deciding
to not feed, in a manufactured landscape in which we have little
diversity in many areas, is probably not the best practice. Queens
may fail over winter, so look for a spotty brood pattern to see if
the queen needs to be replaced.
Andy’s
contact information is 515-725-1481,
andrew.joseph@IowaAgriculture.gov.
He enccourages people to contact him with questions and concerns.
He is hopeful the state will soon be hiring another inspector.
Floyd:
Floyd brought mixtures of a patty mix to share. He made several
concluding points:
--once
you begin feeding, continue.
--swarm
control is important as we get into May
--once
you start making splits, stagger them to if there is a weather
problem you have splits are various stages and are less susceptible
to large losses
--pull
off old queens mid-April and put into a small colony. Ten days
after pulling the queen, the original hive should have created
numerous queen cells. These frames can be removed and put into nucs
with two frames of brood and workers, with honey and pollen frames
as well. Make sure not to crush the queen cells.
Thanks
as always to the Stewards for providing refreshments and to Andy for
sharing his knowledge and insights.
Our
next meeting will be Monday, June 10th.
