American
Foul Brood Disease (AFB)
For
details of this disease please look at the files on the website
FURTHER
BEE DISEASE CONFIRMED
An
outbreak of American Foulbrood (AFB), a disease affecting colonies of
honeybees, has been confirmed in the Perthshire area.
The
disease was discovered during ongoing investigations into European Foulbrood
(EFB), which was confirmed last month.
There
are no risks to public health.
So
far AFB has been found in four hives in three apiaries. Bee inspectors are
continuing their investigations and the Scottish Government’s
animal health contingency plan has been activated.
A
surveillance zone has been put in place around the confirmed cases and
inspections are taking place based on information provided by
the affected beekeeper.
As
with the EFB outbreak, both the Bee Farmers Association and the Scottish
Beekeepers Association have been informed.
Bee
farmers and beekeepers are being urged to be vigilant for signs of the disease,
to maintain good husbandry practices and to notify the
ocal area office of the
Scottish Government’s Rural Inspections and Payments Directorate if they
suspect EFB or AFB.
So
far 1,093 hives have been inspected for EFB with 61 of those testing positive.
Forty hives have been destroyed.
Unlike
EFB, hive with AFB cannot be treated with antibiotics.They
must be destroyed.
NOTES
FOR NEWS EDITORS
AFB
is a notifiable disease under The Bee Diseases and Pests Control (
of apiary inspections carried out by Scottish Government
bee inspectors.
There
are eight suitably-trained bee inspectors in
Disease
Strategy Group, Science and Advice for Scottish Agriculture (SASA) and the
Scottish Agricultural College.
Further
information will be available at www.scotland.gov.uk
and www.scottishbeekeepers.org.uk
Hello Everyone – Latest development
06/08/2009
One of our members near Inverness has
reported a suspicion of AFB.
The symptoms were such that the inspector and the beekeeper agreed that the infection was AFB and the colonies have now been destroyed.
The beekeeper has had the bees for a few years and there is no obvious reason to explain why these bees were infected.
In other words, there is a possibility of additional infected stocks in the area.
Please remain
vigilant.
best wishes
Gavin
Added 08/08/09
Press reports
and PROMED (Disease surveillance service) notes
Date: Fri 31 Jul 2009
Source: BBC News [edited]
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/8177938.stm>
'Serious threat' from bee disease
---------------------------------
Beekeepers in Scotland have warned of a
serious threat to the industry after a deadly disease was discovered.
At least 4 hives and
3 apiaries in Perthshire have been found
to be infected with American foul brood (AFB).
The honeybee disease was discovered
while investigating cases of European foul brood (EFB) in the area. Colonies
infected with EFB can be saved if
the case is not serious. However, those
with AFB cannot be treated with antibiotics and have to be destroyed.
Foul brood is caused by a bacterium,
which gets inside bee larvae and uses up their food supply, starving them to
death.
EFB was discovered in Perthshire and Angus last month [June 2009].
Gavin Ramsay from the Scottish
Beekeepers Association said: "It's the worst problem in beekeeping in
Scotland for very many years. It's going to
be very disruptive to beekeeping
probably for a few years.
It's a notifiable
disease, so that means if you have a suspicion that you have it in your bees you have to tell
the authorities and the bee
inspectors will come and have a look and
test it.
"It's a new problem, it's something
that we're not used to dealing with
here, so it means people are going to have to learn how to identify it
in
the early stages so it can be treated,
and also how to change our beekeeping to
minimise the likelihood it's going to appear."
So far, just over 1000 hives have been
inspected for EFB and 61 of those have tested positive. 40 hives have
been destroyed.
[A 54-year-old beekeeper] has had to
burn hundreds of his hives because of the EFB infection, which can be
detected by its bad fish smell. He said:
"Everyone has to be cleaner, better
bee-keepers than before, more
observant and indulge in regular renewal of their
equipment."
He said recent summers had been bad for
the beekeeping industry -- bees were stressed and the varroa mite had
also caused problems.
"The threat to the industry in
Scotland is very serious," [he] said. "There are a considerable
number of the main commercial beekeepers in
Scotland concentrated within this area.
If they're taken out of the
equation and the honey doesn't exist for these people then
heather honey,
which is an iconic Scottish product, may
cease to exist as a mass market
item."
A surveillance zone has been set up
around the site of the AFB outbreak and further inspections are being
carried out.
Andrew Scarlett
from beekeepers and honey packers Scarletts Scotland told BBC Scotland
that the industry had suffered so much.
"Already this year [2009] we've
employed fewer beekeepers, we're obviously going to produce less honey, but most
of our overheads remain the same."
He urged other beekeepers to inform the
government as soon as they
suspected they had a foul brood infection.
Communicated by:
ProMED-mail
<promed@promedmail.org
Beekeepers in Scotland have warned of a serious threat to
the industry after
a deadly disease was discovered. At least 4 hives and
3 apiaries in Perthshire have been found
to be infected with American foul brood (AFB).
The honeybee disease was discovered
while investigating cases of European foul brood (EFB) in the area. Colonies
infected with EFB can be saved if
the case is not serious. However, those
with AFB cannot be treated with antibiotics and have to be destroyed.
Foul brood is caused by a bacterium,
which gets inside bee larvae and uses up their food supply, starving them to
death.
EFB was discovered in Perthshire and Angus last month [June 2009].
Gavin Ramsay from the Scottish
Beekeepers Association said: "It's the worst problem in beekeeping in
Scotland for very many years. It's going to
be very disruptive to beekeeping
probably for a few years.
It's a notifiable disease, so that means if you have a suspicion
that you have
it in your bees you have to tell the authorities and the bee
inspectors will come and have a look and
test it.
"It's a new problem, it's something
that we're not used to dealing with
here, so it means people are going to have to learn how to identify it
in
the early stages so it can be treated,
and also how to change our beekeeping to
minimise the likelihood it's going to appear."
So far, just over 1000 hives have been
inspected for EFB and 61 of those have tested positive. 40 hives have
been destroyed.
[A 54-year-old beekeeper] has had to
burn hundreds of his hives because of the EFB infection, which can be
detected by its bad fish smell. He said:
"Everyone has to be cleaner, better
bee-keepers than before, more
observant and indulge in regular renewal of their
equipment."
He said recent summers had been bad for
the beekeeping industry -- bees were stressed and the varroa mite had
also caused problems.
"The threat to the industry in
Scotland is very serious," [he] said. "There are a considerable
number of the main commercial beekeepers in
Scotland concentrated within this area.
If they're taken out of the
equation and the honey doesn't exist for these people then
heather honey,
which is an iconic Scottish product, may
cease to exist as a mass market
item."
A surveillance zone has been set up
around the site of the AFB outbreak and further inspections are being
carried out.
Andrew Scarlett
from beekeepers and honey packers Scarletts Scotland told BBC Scotland
that the industry had suffered so much.
"Already this year [2009] we've
employed fewer beekeepers, we're obviously going to produce less honey, but most
of our overheads remain the same."
He urged other beekeepers to inform the
government as soon as they
--
Communicated by:
ProMED-mail
<promed@promedmail.org
[American foul brood (AFB) is an
infectious disease of the larval stage of the honeybee _Apis
mellifera_ and other _Apis_
spp, and occurs throughout
the world where such bees are kept. _Paenibacillus larvae_, the causative organism, is a Gram positive bacterium
that can produce over one billion
spores in each infected larva. The
bacterium is a round-ended, straight and sometimes curved rod, which varies
greatly in size (0.5 micron wide by
1.5 to 6 micron long), occurring singly
and in chains and filaments; some
strains are motile. The sporangia are often sparse in vitro, and the
ellipsoidal, central to subterminal spores, which may swell the sporangia, are often found
free. The spores are extremely heat stable and resistant
to chemical agents. Only spores are
capable of inducing the disease.
The infection can be transmitted to
larvae by nurse bees or by spores remaining at the base of a brood cell.
Although the larval stages of
worker bees, drones, and queens are
susceptible to infection, infected queens and drone larvae are rarely
seen under natural conditions. The
susceptibility of larvae to AFB disease
decreases with increasing age; larvae cannot be infected later than
53 hours after the egg has hatched.
The mean infective dose (LD50= spore
dose at which 50 percent of the larvae are killed) needed to initiate
infection, though very variable, is
8.49 spores in 24-48 hour-old bee
larvae. Exchanging combs containing the remains of diseased brood is the most
common way of spreading the disease
from colony to colony.
In addition, feeding or robbing of
spore-laden honey or bee bread, package bees, and the introduction of queens
from infected colonies can also
spread the disease. Wax contaminated
with the spores of _P. larvae_, which are used in the production of comb
foundation, can also
spread the disease. The early detection
of AFB helps to prevent further spread.
The information above has been derived
from chapter 2.2.2. "American foul brood of honey bees" of OIE's Manual of Diagnostic Tests and Vaccines for
Terrestrial Animals, 2009. The chapter,
which includes exhaustive,
illustrated information on the diagnosis of AFB and references,
is
available online at
<http://oie.int/eng/normes/mmanual/2008/pdf/2.02.02_AMERICAN_FOULBROOD.pdf.
The disease is notifiable
in the UK and known to be present, similarly to
many countries in Europe, America, and elsewhere. - Mod.AS]
Subject: Re:
Foulbrood outbreaks Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 4:56 PM
Alan wrote:
Another meeting with SGRPID today and
Gavin/I will give you more details in due course.
The EFB surveillance in the Perthshire/Angus/Fife triangle has so far uncovered 172 EFB-infected
colonies and 39
AFB-infected colonies.
Surprisingly they did not have the number of apiaries involved to hand in the
meeting, but promised to let us
know asap.
Well, just to give you those apiary
numbers, here is the text that went on the SBA website last night:
Here are some more details on the
current state of the outbreak as confirmed by SG this afternoon.
* 98 apiaries inspected as of 5 August
* 18 of them have confirmed EFB
* 8 apiaries have confirmed AFB, 6 in
Perthshire (two of these also have
EFB), and two near Inverness (AFB only)
... although these figures have already
risen today.
The inspectorate now has someone looking
at the area around the Inverness apiaries.
The AFB infection (so far) seems to be
within 20 km of the A9 whereas the EFB infection has spread all the way E
to the North Sea.
best wishes
Gavin
Further Spread
of Foulbroods 21/08/2009
In a meeting on Wednesday involving the
SBA, BFA, SGRPID, SASA and SAC in Edinburgh, we learned of the relentless
increase in total colonies
affected and the spread beyond the
previously known sites. By Monday morning 1,955 colonies had been
inspected. New totals of apiaries
screened were:
- 132 apiaries inspected
- 26 with confirmed EFB
- 9 with confirmed AFB
However, in the last two days there were
4 additional AFB cases confirmed around 15 miles to the east and a similar
distance to the west of
Inverness, considerably expanding the
known affected area. At a local meeting in Dundee immediately afterwards,
we learned that 5 colonies in
one apiary in Glen Prosen
were all found today to have all the symptoms of infection with AFB.
These AFB finds are particularly
devastating for the beekeepers involved, as destruction is the only option.
The means of obtaining and applying oxytetracycline were discussed, and the urgency of the
matter reinforced as bees begin their return from the
heather in a couple of weeks, which is a
suitable time for such treatment.
An economic review of the impact of the
outbreak on beekeeping in Scotland had been prepared, and the bee farmers present
offered to meet separately
to revise the figures in the
document. The Scottish Government staff present were
reminded once again that decisive action now will help reduce
problems and associated costs in the
coming years.
Although one commercial operation in
Perthshire is still to have a proportion of its apiaries inspected, the
inspection effort is now
switching to the hobby sector.
Beekeepers are reminded that ………..
1. Treatment of EFB must not be undertaken unless by trained
and authorised persons
2. Treatment is only a possible option for some EFB cases
and contacts and with the agreement of an Inspector. It is never an
option for AFB cases.
3. The first and most important course of action on suspicion
of either of the foulbroods is to report to the Inspectorate.
4. colonies must not be destroyed
on suspicion without informing the inspectorate first so that sampling can be
done to effect a diagnosis.
This is critical to ensure that contacts
can be followed up.
Gavin Ramsay, Diseases Convener and Alan
Teale, President, Scottish
Beekeepers’ Association
.