Northwest Tennessee beekeepers are worried about a recent outbreak of a deadly disease to honey bees that’s quarantined several counties in the region. One west Kentucky beekeeper is offering a potential solution to combat the disease.
American Foulbrood (AFB) is a fatal bacterial disease to bees that is spread through the remaining spores of dead hives. AFB is not a new disease facing beekeepers - it dates back to 1907 when the bacteria was first identified.
But Kentucky Lake Beekeepers Association Vice President James Hinton says west Tennessee beekeepers are generally unfamiliar with it, and the only option for most honey bee farmers that have AFB-infected hives is to burn them down. Honey from an AFB infested hive is not affected.
“We had always been warned about it. Watch out, watch for the symptoms of it. But I don’t think anyone in this club had seen it before,” said Hinton. “[Burning hives] is like losing a pet, or a dog, even though bees are wild insects. We get attached to the critters.”
The Tennessee counties of Henry, Weakley, Stewart, Obion, Gibson, Carroll, Benton, Humphreys, Houston and Montgomery are under quarantine to keep beekeepers from moving hives and equipment and potentially spreading Foulbrood elsewhere.
Tennessee Beekeepers Association President Barry Richards said the disease has gone undetected for decades due to the excessive use of the antibiotic terramycin, which masks AFB’s symptoms. Richards said Foulbrood is being noticed more in hives following the antibiotic’s federal regulation in the last two years.
Richards said he believes a major cause of spread is due to new farmers buying used equipment from other farmers. “New beekeepers might be tempted to get some equipment from a farmer that’s had it stored up in the barn for years. But, If that farmer had foulbrood on his equipment he may not have known about it because he was using terramycin antibiotics every season, and hiding the symptoms. And now, it can erupt undetected until it’s infected several hives,” Richards said. He advises farmers to use disposable gloves when checking for the disease.
Yet, one west Kentucky master beekeeper is offering a potential solution. Kent Williams of Graves County spoke to the Kentucky Lake Beekeepers Association at a meeting last week about Broodsafe, a special feed for bees developed by researchers at Brigham Young University that he said only recently became commercially available.
The feed is infused with microorganisms called bacteriophages, which eat bacteria. BYU researchers developed bacteriophages that specifically attack American Foulbrood bacteria with a 75% cure rate, according to a recent study.
“If it’s that effective, it could almost eliminate American Foulbrood, which is huge,” Williams said. “It’s almost like curing cancer, or the equivalent of that in bees.”
Williams hopes beekeepers in the region will give Broodsafe a chance.
