Bee diseases are all types and signs of diseases
Various diseases of bees, existing at the moment, bring a lot of worries to beekeepers. The bee family is numerous. It consists of one uterus, a huge number of worker bees and hundreds of drones.
Yet, it is a whole, one biological unit, where all its members are connected and interdependent. so, any disease, which can infect at least one bee, may soon affect the health of the whole bee family.
Diseases of bees disrupt the vital functions of these insects, which can lead to deplorable consequences - a decrease in the overall productivity of the family, and often to her death.
Diseases of bees do not occur just like that, there are always reasons, which contribute to their onset and spread.
They can be caused by non-compliance with breeding requirements, care, feeding insects. Also the reason can be development in their fabrics of pathogenic microorganisms or parasites overcoming them.
Some of the diseases of bees are especially dangerous. Therefore, from the timely reaction of the beekeeper to the abnormal behavior of insects, problem detection and elimination, which led to the disease, often depends on the future of all hives in the apiary, and not just the happy recovery of that family, where the disease originated.
Classification of bee diseases
All diseases of honey bees are subject to a certain classification, which gives beekeepers the opportunity to identify the disease itself, the severity of its manifestations, and hence preventive, as well as treatment methods, which are needed to prevent and eliminate it. According to this systematization, they can be divided into emerging depending on:
- Season. This division is conditional, as many diseases develop mainly in a certain period of the year - summer, winter or spring.
- Age of insects. All bee diseases can be divided into those, affecting adults and those, from which the brood suffers.
- Origin. This is the most accurate classification, because it is based on determining the etiological feature - the origin or cause of a disorder. All the variety of bee diseases, as in other animals, can be divided into non-infectious and contagious. The latter, in turn, are divided into infectious and invasive.
- Clinical and pathological changes. Healthy and sick individuals look and behave differently. Each disease has its own characteristics, which are also taken into account in the diagnosis.
To correctly identify bee diseases and their symptoms, all these categories of definitions must be taken into account. Before, how to treat bees you need to know first, what to deal with, and then take the necessary measures to restore the health of their wards.
In general, it is important to remember, that the health of the whole bee family depends directly on the well-being of all its members, because if the adult bees are sick, they will become poorly serviced by larvae, which will inevitably affect their condition in the future.
All major bee diseases and their characteristics are presented below.
Infectious diseases
Differ in the different nature of the pathogen. Can be caused by different types of harmful microorganisms: bacteria, fungi and viruses. They are characterized by a high degree of contagiousness and can spread rapidly among the entire population of bees in the apiary due to direct contact of sick bees with still healthy ones or through contaminated food..
Infectious diseases of bacterial origin are bacteriosis and mycoses, among which it is possible to note:
- Salmonellosis (paratif). The development of this disease is provoked by various types of salmonella. Salmonellosis affects the muscles, hemolymph and digestive tract of adult bees. Characteristic features are that, that in insects the abdomen increases, diarrhea occurs. Yellow-brown excrement, smelly and sticky.
- Colibacteriosis. The disease is caused by Escherichia coli. As a result of its influence on an organism of bees and fast growing general intoxication the abdomen increases, the intestines suffer, diarrhea begins, as a result, infected individuals contaminate the hive walls with their feces. Insects also lose the ability to fly.
- Melanosis. This fungal disease is characteristic of queen bees, in which it affects the seminal vesicles, ovaries, large poisonous gland. The initial stage may be asymptomatic, then the uterus becomes sedentary, she has an enlarged abdomen, decreases, and then the egg-laying stops completely.
- Septicemia. The cause of this disease is a bacterial infection, which affects the hemolymph of insects. The disease can be acute, and without any visible manifestations. Infected insects weaken quickly, lose activity, can't fly because of that, that their pectoral muscles do not work, they activate the wings. The disease is accompanied by diarrhea. Dead body insects can be seen in the nest, who have signs of paralysis. Septicemia is characterized by mass death of bees.
- Aspergillosis. Fungal disease. Though, that it is a disease of the brood, adults also suffer from it. At the initial stage of the disease, they become excited, further weaken. Dark green mold can be seen on dead insects, the abdomen is firm to the touch.
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Infectious diseases of viral nature, which received the general name of expressions, briefly described in the following list:
- Chronic paralysis. The disease affects adults and has two types of manifestations. Weakened individuals often appear in early spring and late autumn, unable to fly. Some of them are violated, aimlessly moving, tremble intermittently. Others gather in groups of several individuals, sedentary. Characteristically enlarged abdomen, filled with watery contents. In summer, in the heat, black individuals with a smaller abdomen and hairless appear. They often lose coordination, losing the ability to fly and die very soon. Very often in the same hive you can see both forms of the disease.
- Acute paralysis. The disease is acute, and latent. It affects young individuals to a greater extent. Insects do not fly, there is a clear tremor of the legs and wings, which are often incorrectly arranged. Sometimes the abdomen may increase. Diarrhea and lethargy are noted.
- Cloudy skirt. Workers and uteri suffer from this disease. The disease sometimes occurs without obvious symptoms, but most often acute and affects the wings of insects. They become cloudy and dark. Bees cannot take off and crawl helplessly near the flight. Another characteristic feature of the disease is turbid, with a pearlescent hue, hemolymph.
- Filomentovirus. This infection affects adult worker bees and queens. It can cause mass deaths, especially in late winter or early spring, when filomentovirus is shown with special force. The pathogen accumulates in the hemolymph, which acquires a milky color.
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Invasive diseases
They are just as dangerous, as well as infectious, but not all are contagious. Animal organisms are the source of these diseases for the bee family. They are classified based on the nature of the pathogen - caused by protozoa (protozoa), ticks (arachnoidosis), helminths (helminthiasis) and parasitic insects (entomoses). Here's a little more about them.
Protozoa
All infectious diseases, which are caused by the simplest, almost similar in their main clinical manifestations. For this reason, diagnose, only visually inspecting insects is very difficult. The final conclusion is possible only as a result of microscopic analysis of dead specimens.
- Nozematosis. This disease is a clear representative of this type of disease. It is caused by intracellular parasites, concentrated in the epithelial cells of the middle intestine of bees. From infection to the appearance of the first clinical signs passes 1 or 2 weeks. Insects are very weak, their abdomen increases in size, severe diarrhea occurs. Bees have fluttering wings, they become lethargic, incapable of flight. Drones lose the ability to fertilize.
- Amebiasis. This disease occurs very often with nosematosis and manifests itself in the spring, when the intensity of metabolism in insects increases. Bees fly out of their hives en masse and die in the air during the flight. There are also crawling on the cells and walls of the hive of individuals with large bellies. Due to intestinal disorders, they leave there stains of feces.
- Gregarinosis. This invasive disease affects the body of bees when consuming contaminated water. In sick insects diarrhea is noted, real estate, they also stop flying.
Arachnoses
These diseases are quite common, as mites can be present in almost all apiaries. Arachnoses have their own feature - some difficulty in determining the pathological level of insect infestation and timely diagnosis of the disease at an early stage.
- Varroatosis. This disease affects the whole family, but at first it goes unnoticed, by the time the pathogen is affected by one-third to one-half of all insects. They are weakening, their efficiency is greatly reduced. Ugly individuals with traces of wing and leg deformity appear. The uterus begins to lay new eggs unevenly. In winter, bees behave restlessly, make a nervous noise, at the bottom of the hive is a large cluster of dead insects.
- Acarapidosis. This disease affects the trachea of bees, where the parasite reproduces. With the course of the disease, the location of the wings in insects becomes asymmetric, they cannot take off normally, crawl in groups on the ground and die en masse in one day.
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Entomoses
All diseases of this type are caused by parasitic bees on microscopic insects.
- Braulez. This disease is spread among insect populations along with bee lice. Initially, braulosis is manifested by uterine anxiety, as well as nursing bees, which is then replaced by lethargy. They become slow and passive, gradually stop doing the necessary work inside the hive. The diseased uterus completely stops laying eggs, if it is.
- Meleoz. The source of this disease - the larvae of the beetle genus Meloe, which penetrate directly into the abdomen of adult bees, starting to feed on their hemolymph. Visually, the disease looks like this - insects jump, to spin, pull legs. After a while they die.
- Senotainiosis. The disease spreads to worker bees. The source of infection is senotaine flies, which attack these insects and lay their larvae 'bodies. Clinically, cenotainiosis is similar in its manifestations to meleosis.
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Non-communicable diseases
This is a group of diseases, which is based on the violation of the beekeeper's accepted norms of feeding, conditions for keeping and breeding bees. Also the reason can be aggressive environmental conditions. These diseases can cause no less harm to insects, than infections and invasions.
Diseases, which are associated with non-compliance with feeding standards:
- Carbohydrate starvation. The development of this disease is provoked by lack or improper distribution of food inside the nest or their absence in the hive. Prolonged starvation leads to the gradual death of both adults and offspring. Manifested all year round, but especially often in winter and spring. In summer, food shortages may be due to poor harvesting or prolonged adverse weather conditions.. A sign of starvation is the presence of a mass of dead insects in front of the hive. They can also be found dead on empty cells with their heads down.
- Protein starvation. Insufficient pollen and perga lead to protein starvation, which often happens when there are many offspring in the family.
- Water starvation. Lack or lack of water in the hive, especially in the summer heat, leads to the death of insects from dehydration.
Diseases, which are associated with poisoning:
- Salt toxicosis. Disease, the cause of which is insect poisoning with mineral salts. They enter the body of bees with water and food rich in this mineral. At the same time they have a thirst, they become lethargic. Their outer cover turns black, and the abdomen becomes thick and short, there is diarrhea with faeces of dark brown hue.
- Chemical toxicosis. This is the poisoning of bees with pesticides, which cultivate agricultural crops, including honeydew. If the poison is strong, poisoning can develop rapidly and rapidly. Insects do not have time to fly to the hive and the losses in this case are small. If the nectar contains a small amount of poison, the disease becomes widespread, after all, collecting bees have time to get enough honey for that, to feed them the entire adult bee colony.
- Nectar and pollen toxicosis. This poisoning is the result of visits by bees, mostly young, poisonous honey plants and collecting pollen and nectar from them. Young people can also be poisoned, when it begins to eat poisonous pollen, trying to prepare food for larvae, if the nursing bees cannot do so.
- Syndrome toxicosis. This is poisoning with honey mixed with paddy (sticky liquid, released by aphids, worms and leafhoppers), as well as honeydew (stands out by some plants). These fluids contain toxins and mineral salts, which due to excessive consumption of insects can cause poisoning. The disease causes severe and persistent digestive disorders.
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Diseases, which are related to non-compliance with the terms of the content:
- Steaming bees. It happens in that case, if the insects are overexcited. In this condition, bees may have a rise in temperature inside the hive as a result of insufficient ventilation or improper transportation.. Heating softens the wax and the honeycombs filled with honey break off. Insects become wet and black, make a loud noise.
Non-communicable diseases are not only harmful to the bee family, but often become precursors of infectious diseases, as significantly weaken all its members.
Here are the main diseases of bees, about the prevention and treatment of which you can learn, having read about them in detail. Undoubtedly, the best way to protect bees from disease is to prevent them from developing. It is necessary to create the most optimal conditions for feeding and keeping insects in the apiary and to maintain them in the future. Beehives should be located in the sun, elevated places.
It is better to insulate them for the winter. Autumn prevention of bee diseases is also important for insect health. exept this, you always need to select the best representatives of the breed, to avoid hereditary diseases.
Fight theft and wandering of bees, which significantly affect the spread of many bee diseases. You should regularly follow all the rules of sanitation and prevention, to eliminate or minimize possible losses. Only in this case you can create a highly productive, prosperous beekeeping.