Pesticide or CBPV?

[Podilia]

Pesticides or CBPV ?

Interesting question. I have to google what is CBPV. It doesn't look like that. Wiki describes three types:

A Type I infected bee presents with a bloated abdomen due to a fluid-filled honey sac and weak or trembling wings. Type I infected honey bees tend to crawl on the ground or cluster near the entrance of the hive, as their weakened wings lead to an inability to fly.

A Type II infected honey bee presents with complete abdominal hair loss, causing it to appear black and greasy. These bees are still able to fly 2–3 days after symptoms begin to appear, but they lose their ability to fly shortly before succumbing to the disease.

A third type of infection that is a major contributor to the spread of the virus is an infection of CBPV in which the infected bee exhibits no symptoms of the illness. The infected bee does not present with any of the classic symptoms of the disease before death, and, as a result, is able to transmit the virus beyond its own hive.

Wish it would be the virus, it's a natural thing. I visited the apiary in July 13, no signs of the diseas, then in July 16 found handfuls of workers under the all hives and in the grass around. Today I didn't see new deads. The smell of decomposting is mixed with the aroma of the nectar. The bees are more active now. Inspected a few strongest colonies with three supers, two of the colonies dwindled obviously and can't work in the upper box. I removed those supers and give them to colonies with two supers. They look better. The strongest colonies lost more bees. I estimate it could be 20% of workers if the hive consists of 5 boxes (in my hives all boxes are equal). There are no dead drones so I assume the nectar is not poisonous. New generations are replacing the loss so I hope the colonies are recovering.
Sorry, can't add the photo, something wrong with my camera.

In my opinion farmers sprayed chemicals across the bee traffic. There are corn and soy and a lot of blooming sunflower around. In July 16, 2020 I saw a helicopter sprayed chemicals nearby. According to the rules even the less toxic pesticides can be used after the sunset.

 

[hemo]

It was just a thought , glad you looked up CBPV to rule it out.
In the hive /brood box they tend to congregate on the top bars and are physically shivering , when you smoke them they don't react or move down.

 

[Podilia]

Read your thread about CBPV. It's a terrible thing. I never saw it. In my case the bees were not trempling rather writhing (not sure I know the proper English word for this)
When I had a few hives but wanted more honey my bees often starved. I didn't understand that many flowers around are not necessarily mean a lot of free avaliable honey. The bees always need food reserves inside their hives. Many processes in nature are unknown and flowers don't mean honey. For example, this summer is bad for plums, but good for cherries. Why? The same with other vegetation and flowers...
So, such things like sack brood, chalk brood and may be other varieties of ill brood (and not just brood, who knows?) are familiar to me. When bees starve their immune system is weak.
Since then I've change the strategy and leave them as much honey as can. Colonies have become healthy and more productive. More honey they have, more they produce. For example, even now during the fresh nectar flow they have a couple of frames with the last year honey. Sack brood disappeared, chalk brood sometimes emerges in one or two colonies but then vanishes as well without a big effect.
I don't feed them sugar, but in your economy it may be necessary. Anyway, enough foor during the whole year, abundant of pollen from many plants provide bees with health. Winter selects those with bad genetics or weak at all. I think people in this forum know this a, b, c.
As for viruses we humans also have them around, The latest one is covid. I don't know yet whether I got it or not although several times had hight temperature during the pandemic.

 

[user 20297]

Read your thread about CBPV. It's a terrible thing. I never saw it. In my case the bees were not trempling rather writhing (not sure I know the proper English word for this)
When I had a few hives but wanted more honey my bees often starved. I didn't understand that many flowers around are not necessarily mean a lot of free avaliable honey. The bees always need food reserves inside their hives. Many processes in nature are unknown and flowers don't mean honey. For example, this summer is bad for plums, but good for cherries. Why? The same with other vegetation and flowers...
So, such things like sack brood, chalk brood and may be other varieties of ill brood (and not just brood, who knows?) are familiar to me. When bees starve their immune system is weak.
Since then I've change the strategy and leave them as much honey as can. Colonies have become healthy and more productive. More honey they have, more they produce. For example, even now during the fresh nectar flow they have a couple of frames with the last year honey. Sack brood disappeared, chalk brood sometimes emerges in one or two colonies but then vanishes as well without a big effect.
I don't feed them sugar, but in your economy it may be necessary. Anyway, enough foor during the whole year, abundant of pollen from many plants provide bees with health. Winter selects those with bad genetics or weak at all. I think people in this forum know this a, b, c.
As for viruses we humans also have them around, The latest one is covid. I don't know yet whether I got it or not although several times had hight temperature during the pandemic.

Wise words.

 

[Podilia]

Do you have chronic bee paralysis in your area, Podilia?

I don't know exactly. Never take it into account. As far as I can see my biggest problem is pesticides. The outbreak that I described, stopped as suddenly as it started. All my dead bees are hairy workers, some of them with pollen.
I've read our forum, of course people write about "black bees" and everything like in Type 1 and 2. Someone try to heal their bees, successfully or not.
There are some thoughts.
95% of transmission is provided by varroa (don't know where they took this figure).
The medicine against CBPV costs more than a colony.
Requeening can help.
The colonies exposed to the direct sun are more vulnerable. (I don't think so)
The lack of pollen is one of the causes of the desease. Maybe the variety of pollen is more important. Many regions and locations don't have too much of it due to monocultures and intense farming. Bees have to consume "monofood".

In my opinion our anti-varroa methods also affect their immune system. For example, when we buy pills or drugs we can find inside a box a long tiny text with the information about that drug and its side effects. Sometimes side effects are very serious for our health. The same with bees. I don't know what kind of treatment against varroa is used in the UK. Here beekeepers are so afraid that use the most powerful and effective treatment. Varroa dies but what happens in a hive when we put inside so strong substances? The colony is very complicated thing, and we act like elephants in a shop. I think it's also not good for bees' immune system. It's important not to be too radical. Varroa is harmful but too "heavy" medicine as well.
Humans and bees can't be 100% healthy. Natural selection is working. Bad conditions provoke outbreaks of desease, parasites etc. So I see the best solution is providing as good and natural conditions for bees as we can.

 

[user 20297]

I don't know exactly. Never take it into account. As far as I can see my biggest problem is pesticides. The outbreak that I described, stopped as suddenly as it started. All my dead bees are hairy workers, some of them with pollen.
I've read our forum, of course people write about "black bees" and everything like in Type 1 and 2. Someone try to heal their bees, successfully or not.
There are some thoughts.
95% of transmission is provided by varroa (don't know where they took this figure).
The medicine against CBPV costs more than a colony.
Requeening can help.
The colonies exposed to the direct sun are more vulnerable. (I don't think so)
The lack of pollen is one of the causes of the desease. Maybe the variety of pollen is more important. Many regions and locations don't have too much of it due to monocultures and intense farming. Bees have to consume "monofood".

In my opinion our anti-varroa methods also affect their immune system. For example, when we buy pills or drugs we can find inside a box a long tiny text with the information about that drug and its side effects. Sometimes side effects are very serious for our health. The same with bees. I don't know what kind of treatment against varroa is used in the UK. Here beekeepers are so afraid that use the most powerful and effective treatment. Varroa dies but what happens in a hive when we put inside so strong substances? The colony is very complicated thing, and we act like elephants in a shop. I think it's also not good for bees' immune system. It's important not to be too radical. Varroa is harmful but too "heavy" medicine as well.
Humans and bees can't be 100% healthy. Natural selection is working. Bad conditions provoke outbreaks of desease, parasites etc. So I see the best solution is providing as good and natural conditions for bees as we can.

Absolutely correct...especially about the bees needing to be given "good and natural conditions".
Do beekeepers there use oxalic acid? In the UK, many people think it is a "magic bullet" and that the bees are not affected by it. But I agree with you that "the colony is a very complicated thing" and we don't know the side-effects that would have been written in "tiny text" if it was a human medicine.

 

[ericbeaumont]

we act like elephants in a shop

Yes, and it would be better if we acted and thought like a bee. Jim Ryan, the Irish beekeeper, used that phrase to close a Honey Show lecture years ago, and I remember it still.

Thanks for that thoughtful post, Podilia.

 

[Podilia]

Do beekeepers there use oxalic acid? In the UK, many people think it is a "magic bullet" and that the bees are not affected by it.

Sorry, was very busy. Extracted honey.
Oxalic acid is not so popular, because, in my opinion beekeeprs here are not so obsessed with organic approach. OA is effective but in a short period of time. Now colonies have brood and less bees than before the main harvest. The population of mites are growing quickly. Now we can use either wooden stripes with chemicals or essential oils. Stripes with chemicals work for a month, stripes with oils as well (if we believe to a manufacturer, but I think it's not true, it evaporates during several days). The first method is very effective and we can relax, although some people don't think so and fight mites until winter.
However I prefer oils in August and oxalic acid in autumn. Some mites survive until oxalic treatment but they cannot do much harm. So I'm sure my honey, vax, frames are not contaminated with chinese overdose fluvalinate, amitraz, flumetrine, "healthful" smoke etc.
Formic acid is also good thing. They managed to produce it in containers with a gel, but it's more expensive then oxalic. I also used thymol but now 1 kg of it costs like 50 kg of honey.
It seems there are more organic stuff in our market than a few years ago. That's a good sign.