Laurence Edwards opens an abandoned beehive untouched for over a decade, finding heavy propolis buildup and granulated honey. He searches for brood and checks for European and American foulbrood, two diseases that threaten local apiaries, and explains why he prefers Apivar over Apiguard for treatment.
This is a proper, proper abandoned beehive full of bees, not been touched for 10 years at least, I would say. Could be 20, could be 30, could be 5, but I reckon by the state of the frames, the fact of how old and propolised everything is together, we're looking at double digits here for years. Bees all the way down there on that bottom surface. Top box is full to the brim with honey, lots of stores. Even though it's granulated, the bees will be working that consistently. This is a really cool find. So you can see the bees there flying in, flying out. They are like a little bit angry, but they're not that bad. I've seen much, much worse colonies, especially abandoned colonies, than this. So we will persevere. Remember, the reason that we're doing this, we want to try and find some brood, and we want to assess that brood to see if the brood is healthy. We're looking for signs of EFB, which is European foulbrood, and AFB, both incredibly contagious diseases. That will spread across all of the bees in the local area if not kept in check. So very, very similar frame, that one. We won't go messing around with that one. I can see another Apiguard tray down there. I keep on saying Apivars, 'cause what I use all the time is Apivar, but what a lot of people like to use is Apiguard. Not a fan of Apiguard myself. Taints your honey supers, gutted, and also not the most effective.
