No beekeeper wants to think that the bees they manage are dirty, unclean or disease ridden so when a DEFRA notification email popped up on my laptop, my first thoughts were, “Arrr, what does that mean, how is this going to affect me and my apiary, and what do I do now?”
I was very nervous contacting the Bee Inspector, Stewart Westsmith, to arrange a visit but I am so glad that I did. On the BeeBase website, there is information on EFB and how to identify it which was easy to understand and absorb.
On the arranged day, I was reassured that he had a clean suit, boots and equipment including test kits. My role was that of official observer and assistant. Stewart explained everything that he was going to do and gave helpful advice as we went through my hives. He was efficient, quick and all the time scrupulously hygienic.
After taking off the supers, he inspected every brood frame, shaking off all the bees. Suspect larvae were tweezered out onto his glove where it was inspected for segmentation, colour and the gut condition. These were then burned in the smoker; gloves and hive tool washed.
Happily, even though I was in the middle of the 3km zone, my hive just had a little sacbrood.
European Foulbrood is a notifiable disease and Bee Inspectors can only notify beekeepers and inspect hives that are registered onto BeeBase so if you aren’t, please can I urge you to make this a priority.
On the BeeBase website, relevant information about Disease Incidence includes live EFB reports, graphs and maps which can be very useful.
Angela Nicholls