Category Apiary Biosecurity & Sanitation

Most disease in an apiary is carried in by the beekeeper, on a hive tool, a swapped frame, a shared feeder or a box bought second-hand. Bees do the rest through drifting and robbing. The guides here are about closing those routes: yard layout that reduces drift, cleaning and sanitizing tools, gloves, extractors and uncapping knives, what to do with a deadout before any of its comb goes back into service, and how to move colonies between yards without moving trouble with them.

Three habits pay for themselves. First, treat a deadout as a diagnosis, not a resource: work out why it died before reusing anything, because scale from American foulbrood in old comb is invisible at a glance and a notifiable disease in most jurisdictions, while comb from a starved or mite-collapsed colony can usually go back in. Second, keep a separate hive tool, or scorch the one you have, between a sick colony and the rest of the yard, and inspect the suspect hive last. Third, sample every hive for mites rather than only the ones that look weak, since drift spreads mites evenly across a row.

These guides are for anyone running more than one hive, and essential for anyone running more than one yard.

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