had the complete opposite to nice frames of brood today. A friend is moving into a place this week, comes with a beehive. Apparently the arrangement at the place was that a hive had been given to the occupants by someone who was going to manage it and bill for the hours it took. Hadn't been opened for quite a while, the occupants rang the 'hive manager' a month or so back to ask what was going on and got told "you can have the hive if you want". Anyway... my friend asked if i could come take a look.
The hive was a mess, box and a half of stores, so no issue on that front. Riddled with pms, makes sense given that it it was last treated in spring. Plenty of suspect looking cells obviously. And that's where it gets complicated, i opened up a hundred or so brood cells - none were healthy. But I'm fairly sure it's all varroa related - there were plenty of them in the cells I opened and on bees in the hive. Bees dying as they were emerging, dead in cells but solid/complete pupae. Some pretty ugly looking larvae, none roped out.
So... the entrance is much reduced, there are enough bees to defend it, there are now varroa strips in, and I've promised to keep an eye on it.
I'm basically following this advice from the afb page
Inspecting frames | The Management Agency, National American Foulbrood Pest Management Plan New Zealand:
"The best way to deal with a hive that has a very large number of cells with perforated cappings, but does not appear to have AFB, is to mark the hive and remove nothing from it. The next step is to eliminate the major cause of the chewed cappings, by requeening (for sacbrood or chalkbrood), or treating the varroa (for PMS). The colony can then be checked for AFB"
Thoughts?
edit: the friend moving into the place has some experience with bees, has registered the hive/site, and wants to follow the rules - including doing what needs to be done if afb is confirmed