Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => General Beekeeping => Topic started by: Jen on October 29, 2018, 12:25:20 am
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How do we wash our tools if they have been exposed to American Foul Brood?
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Bleach or alcohol pretty much kills anything, doesn't it?
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Jen, this website from our Northern neighbors gives good information on how to treat all your equipment including hive tools, gloves, smoker and hands. http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/food/inspection/bees/afb-mgmt.htm (http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/food/inspection/bees/afb-mgmt.htm)
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The state apiaris said to use fire. Ted
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Good website Baker, same site was sent to me last night. Looks like I'll be bringing out the dragon.
Yep Ted, bleach doesn't cut it, has to be fire
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Our state inspector Nancy , doesn't wear gloves or veil. She has a small canvas pouch (3-slots) with magnets that has a belt clip. Before she leaves any apiary she will wipe down knife and hive tool and pouch wirh 99% isopropyl alcohol. She told me that was good enough for tools but as far as woodenware i think its burn it.
Please research this, don't take my word.
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for hive tools, fire......like ted said.
fire up your smoker, get it good and hot with some good 'coal's' and rolling smoke and stick it in there, or take a butane/propane torch to it.
then i just use sudsy yellow ammonia to wipe hive tools down with, and have used isopropyl alcohol, have both in my 'bee bucket'.
good practice anyway jen, if you are helping others and peeking in their hives. use the smoker to stick your hive tool in.
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... jen, if you are helping others and peeking in their hives. use the smoker to stick your hive tool in.
I almost always leave my tools at home when visiting another apiary. Use their tools and your tools can't carry anything home. JMO :)
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Like this idea Lee, but I'm working with five new beekeepers, I never know what I'm walking into. I have a couple new beekeepers that had no tools, they took their new packages/nucs home in the spring, got the hive in place, and never once opened the hive all summer long.
River, I rarely use a smoker, good idea tho ;)
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I leave a pair of hive tools at every apiary. no cross contamination & I never have to worry about forgetting to bring tools along with me.
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"I'm working with five new beekeepers, I never know what I'm walking into. I have a couple new beekeepers that had no tools, they took their new packages/nucs home in the spring, got the hive in place, and never once opened the hive all summer long.
River, I rarely use a smoker, good idea tho"
no hive tool and never once opened the hive all summer long?
okay. hive tools are inexpensive and sort of a basic piece of equipment.......
rarely use a smoker? why jen? anytime we open a hive, we ought to have a smoker fired up, i am gonna be like iddee. especially with newer keeps.
smoker ready irregardless.
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The UK Bee Inspectors store their hive tools in a solution of Washing Soda ...... sodium carbonate decahydrate.
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Rober sezs...
I leave a pair of hive tools at every apiary. no cross contamination & I never have to worry about forgetting to bring tools along with me.
I do that also but it is never on purpose... I wish I could blame that on an old and obsolete cpu but I did the same thing when I was young.. The thread just got me to wondering... anyone seeing AFB? Can't say I have seen any in decades.
Gene in Central Texas
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I've not had a problem with foulbrood but like to error on the side of caution. I also have a small quarantine yard I use to isolate hives started from swarms & cut-outs. once I know they are clear I move them to my actual bee yards.
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...I do that also but it is never on purpose...
Gene in Central Texas
There is a lot of that going on at my house. Last year, I still had my original hive tool from 1976, but can't find it now. I'm still hoping it will turn up. I'll know it by sight, because it is the real rusty one. ;)
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Tecumseh: We had one hive with suspected foul brood a couple months back. It smelled of dead fish. I called and emailed the state dude to schedule an appointment to either confirm or rule it out. Having two other hives at that location, and recalling that it could take a few days for him to respond and a few more days to schedule a time, i screened the hive closed that night and we torched it, along with our gloves, the next day as a precaution against spreading the possible foul brood. It was windy the day of the inspection, when we first suspected foul brood,so you had to get your nose right down next the the frames to smell the dead, rotty, fish smell. When I went back to close the hive up that night the wind was calm and I could smell it as i walked up to the hive. The state guy came a few days later to inspect the other hives at that location and said they looked like good strong healthy colonies. That was a relief. We hated torching the one colony/hive but was more concerned about contamination of the other two. Ted
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"no hive tool and never once opened the hive all summer long?"
In the spring a flat bed truck pulls up to the Ag office. Many of us beekeepers and first year beekeepers are milling around and chatting. We are given our nucs and packages and checked off. What happens to those nucs and packages after that, we do not know. Until, we get posts on our county agriculture facebook page asking "Where did my bees go?" "Why are there bees on the ground with no wings?" "I lifted the lid and the bees don't like me so I put the lid down and haven't been in there again"
That what I mean by 'I never know what I'm walking into.' I'm sure many of you on this forum have run into the same thing. I have two new beeks that have never lifted the lid, they were told as long as you have bees coming and going.. everything is just fine.
Palm on forehead 'Oy Vey'
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"no hive tool and never once opened the hive all summer long?"
In the spring a flat bed truck pulls up to the Ag office. Many of us beekeepers and first year beekeepers are milling around and chatting. We are given our nucs and packages and checked off. What happens to those nucs and packages after that, we do not know. Until, we get posts on our county agriculture facebook page asking "Where did my bees go?" "Why are there bees on the ground with no wings?" "I lifted the lid and the bees don't like me so I put the lid down and haven't been in there again"
That what I mean by 'I never know what I'm walking into.' I'm sure many of you on this forum have run into the same thing. I have two new beeks that have never lifted the lid, they were told as long as you have bees coming and going.. everything is just fine.
Palm on forehead 'Oy Vey'
We call those "bee-havers" not beekeepers.
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Jen, you have my praise for helping those bee havers. I have chased around the country doing one visit miracles often enough that I'm burned out. I expect you to have a similar experience over time.
I talk half the prospective beekeepers out of it on their first Club field trip or hive inspection at my apiary. In my view, keeping bees successfully over time requires a commitment to a long term education. Some folks should not keep bees. :)
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jen,
i think sometimes folks are fooled into thinking bees are set and forget? when they realize honey bees do need some attention panic sets in because either there has been no direction, or perhaps they thought keeping bees was going to be easy, and also have not educated themselves or sought some education/direction from an experienced keep from the get go. too many think you take a box of bees and set it out in your garden and all is good, not knowing and not educating one's self. there seems to be a lot of this going around. good intentions but not willing to figure out the science and passion of keeping bees. i think most of us have a passion, cuz we are not in it for money ......... :D
also, those who are telling these folks "as long as you have bees coming and going.. everything is just fine." ? who are these people? they surely are not beekeepers. it is unfortunate.
i have helped many and mentored many and have fielded questions from those interested in keeping bees. like bakers said, beehavers and beekeepers.
lot's of funny stories on this; some sad, and sometimes best that the person not keep bees....... :D
honey bees are an amazing social insect.
and to what lee said, very true......
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reminds me of an old timers who I met when I first got into beekeeping several years ago. He had an interesting story. When he was young man there was a beekeeper down the road and he had taken an interest in beekeeping. He knocked on the keeps door and asked him if he would teach him beekeeping. The guy agreed and told him to come back the next day and they would get started. He went to town bought him a veil and went over the next day for his first lesson. The old keep told him when he said he had to get his veil not to bother he wouldn't need it. He took him out back banged around opening the top cover the bees boiled out an he got stung several time. The old man closed the cover and said "thats your first lesson. Come back tomorrow for your next. " He left said he was a bit upset but did go back the next day. Again he told the keep he was going to get his veil. The old keep again told him he didn't need it. They went out to the same hive and the young man stopped the old man and said "if you think im coming out here for your entertainment watching me get stung Im done" The old man laughed said " No yesterday I taught you how to get stung today I will teach you how not to get stung and work bees the right way" The old timer later told the guy he did that to everyone who asked to learn beekeeping. Said if they come back the next day they was serious. The young man in this story was in his 70's when I met him and was still keeping bees.
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I love that story Rrat. I do know a woman in our area, in her second year, who is so positive that she has this loving worldly connection with her bees, that she would never get stung. She got stung on the eye this late spring when the hive was superceding.
She messaged me crying for pete sake.
Hand on my forehead, Oy Vey
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I was told by an inspector to scorch hive tools in the smoker.
Gloves and suit, I guess washer on heavy-duty HOT cycle
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I love that story Rrat. I do know a woman in our area, in her second year, who is so positive that she has this loving worldly connection with her bees, that she would never get stung. She got stung on the eye this late spring when the hive was superceding.
She messaged me crying for pete sake.
Hand on my forehead, Oy Vey
:) I guess it's mean of me to grin over this, but come on. They are insects, not puppies. Mine do things that tickle me, like when I am outside working one or two will coming buzzing around or even land on me and lick up some sweat. I think they are used to me but it would be anthropomorphic thinking to assume affection.
By the way, this really impresses Sweet Wife, who is highly allergic to stings. She thinks I'm some kind of bee whisperer. :laugh: I wish!
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I was told by an inspector to scorch hive tools in the smoker.
Gloves and suit, I guess washer on heavy-duty HOT cycle
Leather gloves would be ruined in a hot washing machine. Some suits would be too. I have a suit that I was afraid to wash because the hood would come off in the washing machine. I never could get the hood back on. It took a 16 year old kid about 30 minutes to zip the hood back on. After that, I never washed it again. After all, the hood is the most important aspect of the suit. Perhaps someone with experience could comment on whether gloves and suit would be contaminated enough that they might need to be destroyed.
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I wear my jacket 5 or 6 times a year. It's washed once or twice a year. I unzip the hood and my wife washes it in the sink. Then she machine washes the jacket. I wear my gloves once every year or two. I have never washed them. I do smoke them well when I use them. DO NOT USE BLEACH It will cause the cloth to come apart in shreds.
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Sometimes my gloves get so sticky and gooey that I go to the sink in our garage and put them under the faucet, my hands still in the gloves, and give them a good rinse, then take them off of my hands and hang them to dry. This way, the gloves stay in the shape of my hands and they're easier to slip on the next day. The leather in the gloves does get stiff while drying but they soften up again pretty quickly.
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Sometimes my gloves get so sticky and gooey that I go to the sink in our garage and put them under the faucet, my hands still in the gloves, and give them a good rinse, then take them off of my hands and hang them to dry. This way, the gloves stay in the shape of my hands and they're easier to slip on the next day. The leather in the gloves does get stiff while drying but they soften up again pretty quickly.
This is a good tip! Thanks Jen. :)
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like jen while wearing my gloves I wash them under warm water. after they dry while wearing them I rub mineral oil into them much like rubbing in hand cream. I take the veil off of my jacket & soak it in a tub with soap & oxy. then spray it off with a hose & hang it to dry.
baker-I had a hard time reattaching my veil the first time. once I figured it out it was actually easy.
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Baker, putting the veil back on is like solving a Chinese puzzle LOL.
Jen, with so much info out there about beekeeping, I just can’t imagine folks taking on beekeeping without some level of understanding. Oy vi is right!