After my visit to the cemetery bees on Friday, I was pretty alarmed at what I saw in the south hive. I looked up who the state apiary inspector is for my county and emailed him with my concerns, along with a couple pictures of pupae I’d poked out of a cell to check for ropiness.

He responded quickly agreed that the photos of pupae looked concerning. He said he’d like to come take a look early this week.

I didn’t realize how anxious I was about this until we made this plan. Knowing a professional was going to check things out was a relief. Still, I knew that if he determined my hive was suffering from American Foulbrood, I’d have to burn it and I wasn’t sure how that would work at my hive location. Based on some extensive internet reading and studying photos of brood diseases, I suspected European Foulbrood, but I wanted to be sure.

During the inspection, he first checked the north hive and determined it was healthy after pulling a few frames in the brood nest. The north hive has been busy since I peeked at it on Friday; the second super is almost full. He mentioned I could probably add a third super. I could do this, since I’m not putting any of the supers on the south hive this year. I might see if I can get some assembled, wired foundation frames later this week so I can get it on there as soon as possible.

Then the south hive. I was really nervous about this. Their numbers seemed even smaller than a few days ago. Pretty quickly after looking at some of the brood frames, he determined it was European Foulbrood. Not good, but not the worst. He pointed out specific signs of the disease in various pupae on one of the frames and confirmed what I’d hoped: the disease was visible in uncapped brood. In American Foulbrood, the disease affects capped brood and the cappings start looking bad.

It was a relief to be sure, and also really validating to get confirmation that my suspicions were correct. This colony is probably too weak to save, but he said I could attempt it as a curiosity. I may focus on the north hive with a mind to split it in the spring.

After the inspection, he followed up to recommend I discard the infected brood frames by double bagging them for the trash and then scraping and cleaning the hive body with 1:5 bleach water solution because this bacteria remains contagious for a few years.

RIP to the south hive, thank you for your service; I am sorry, but I’m also so glad I don’t have to dig a pit and light you on fire.