BBKA Forum

British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • Emergence of deadly honey bee disease revealed

  • Honeybee pests and diseases.
Honeybee pests and diseases.
 #6921  by AdamD
 08 May 2020, 19:37
If anyone hasn't seen the Newcastle University research on chronic bee paralasys virus, the university Press Office link is here:-
https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/latest/2020/05/chronicbeeparalysis/

The 'paper is available to read if you scroll down and look in the section "Reference"
 #8213  by Steve (The Drone)
 13 Jul 2020, 07:09
I have had a case of CBPV. I have (had) two colonies in my home apiary and both presented the typical CBPV symptoms- excessive mortality at the hive entrance, shivering bees and the hairless and greasy appearance of other bees. Both Queens also went off lay.
After reading up and asking advice I swopped out all the frames and boxes. Fortunately I had sufficient drawn out brood frames to give them a start. Initially both colonies started to recover and the Queens began to lay- but after a week one colony began to fail again.
The next bit of advice I had received was to find and place the Queen in a cage, then empty out all the bees at least 50 metres away. This would allow the less infected bee to fly back whilst the ailing ones would perish. After some soul searching I rejected this. The season is getting on and the ailing colony is now small . The other colony is thriving and I dont want it re-infected. Neither do I wish to move the good colony to my other apiaries, just in case!
So I have sacrificed the sick colony and performed a deep clean. All frames burnt and boxes sterilized and torched. All equipment sterilized. The good colony has recovered and is going strong.

No idea where the virus came from as both colonies had been overwintered and nothing had been introduced to the apiary. I maintain good biosecurity. It's going to be even better now!
Steve.
 #8219  by AndrewLD
 13 Jul 2020, 09:21
My CBPV hive is now in quarantine in my out-apiary and I have revised my apiary hygiene to include wearing nitrile gloves (alcohol gel wash after an inspection) and using a new hive tool for each hive.

I am in two minds about this paper. It is heavily reliant on NBU bee inspectors reports (and Giles Budge was a bee inspector). To what extent were inspectors looking for CBPV in 2007? How many beekeepers had their hives inspected? Is the increase in reports down to increased vigilance etc? To what extent is it present in hives but at levels below notice? Are they just pointing to the problem or is there a solution in mind?

I began to question whether this is useful or yet another paper that highlights a problem in order to generate funding and of course, to justify a brand new department. Perhaps that is rather unkind but there is too much of this at the moment. I listened to another Professor telling us that a solution to varroa was just around the corner - didn't want to steal his colleagues thunder - funding runs out though......... That was over two years ago.
 #8223  by NigelP
 13 Jul 2020, 11:12
Typical beekeeping paper.....blame it all on imports without a shred of evidence that imports are the source of CBPV.
It's a particularly weak argument as they show the virus as being present in non infected (asymptomatic) colonies (albeit at lower levels than infected colonies).
More likely (to me at least) that it's a form of stress (varroa perhaps, bee farmer practices?) that allows the virus to then thrive, rather than being naturally kept in check.
 #8225  by Steve 1972
 13 Jul 2020, 16:09
All my bought in Queen colonies are yet to have any health issues..it is the local mongrel bees in one colony that has the weakness..I am letting it run its course for now to see if the newly mated virgin produces bees with a stronger immune system..if the K wing and bald black bees continue I may have to destroy the colony.
 #8228  by Chrisbarlow
 13 Jul 2020, 18:09
I saw Giles budge at a presentation at CABK at the start of the year. I seem to remember that when searching the nbu files he searched for key words for symptoms associated with CBPV. It was a fascinating talk

He mentioned at the time a study from the 60ies about breeding it out of bees and basically breeding from survivor stock. It was successful and successful quickly

I had a dose of it last year in one apiary, it attacked 6 colonies and 4 died. 2 were imported German queens that were both 3yrs old and 4 were daughters of those queens. afterwards All frames were dipped in bleach solution and the boxes burnt to clean. No reappearance this year and all stocks are thriving.

Not a nice disease
 #8231  by AdamD
 14 Jul 2020, 11:24
I had dark shiny bees a number of years ago (7 or 8 perhaps?) but it was in relatively small numbers and went away later in the season. Four or five years ago I had a colony that collapsed and was only just rescued. Last year I had it, one colony survived well although there were dead bees outside in quite high numbers - the queen remained, and the colony did quite well in the circumstances. This season there have been some dead bees outside, although the colony's growth halted so they were not as congested this year before the queen was superceded. A queen taken off this colony last year showed no signs of CBPV this year. The other colony last year that suffered quite badly had a large pile of smelly dead bees outside and it had colonies either side of it which had no signs of the disease. The suffereing colony did generate swarm cells and was eventually requeened and the original combs were re-used, with no subsequent signs of the disease. And yes I probably should have changed over to new comb. From my very limited experience, it would appear that requeening could be the answer - in the same way as you requeen when you have a bad case of chalk brood.
 #8243  by Chrisbarlow
 14 Jul 2020, 21:34
AdamD wrote:
14 Jul 2020, 11:24
I had dark shiny bees a number of years ago (7 or 8 perhaps?) but it was in relatively small numbers and went away later in the season. Four or five years ago I had a colony that collapsed and was only just rescued. Last year I had it, one colony survived well although there were dead bees outside in quite high numbers - the queen remained, and the colony did quite well in the circumstances. This season there have been some dead bees outside, although the colony's growth halted so they were not as congested this year before the queen was superceded. A queen taken off this colony last year showed no signs of CBPV this year. The other colony last year that suffered quite badly had a large pile of smelly dead bees outside and it had colonies either side of it which had no signs of the disease. The suffereing colony did generate swarm cells and was eventually requeened and the original combs were re-used, with no subsequent signs of the disease. And yes I probably should have changed over to new comb. From my very limited experience, it would appear that requeening could be the answer - in the same way as you requeen when you have a bad case of chalk brood.
The Giles budge answer was breed from survivor Stock and you'll quickly breed out susceptibility very quickly.