Chapter 8 Quiz: Keeping Bees Healthy

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1. Managing pests by monitoring, acting at thresholds, using gentle non-chemical methods first and labeled chemicals only when needed, rotating them, and checking results.
2. It can carry American foulbrood spores.
3. Replace the oldest 3–4 frames in each box every year, renewing all comb about every three years.
4. It spreads deadly viruses such as deformed wing virus.
5. Drone cells stay capped longer, so mites raise more offspring in them.
6. Late summer into fall: mites peak and concentrate on the bees just as the colony raises its long-lived winter bees.
7. About 300 bees, roughly ½ cup.
8. 9 ÷ 3 = 3 mites per 100 bees (3%).
9. Damp conditions and nectar make the sugar sticky, so mites stay on the bees and you undercount.
10. Yes by the Honey Bee Health Coalition's 2% late-season threshold (and near Penn State's), though under USDA's 3%. The newest guidance says act.
11. It doesn't penetrate brood cappings, and when there's no brood, all the mites are on adult bees where it can reach them.
12. Mites become resistant to a product used repeatedly; rotating active ingredients keeps treatments working.
13. That product isn't registered for use in beehives; it can leave residues not covered by a legal tolerance, making the honey adulterated and breaking federal law.
14. No; using a registered pesticide inconsistently with its label is a federal violation.
15. Any two of: whether honey supers may be on; waiting periods before supers go back; which harvests are allowed; the dose and timing.
16. Its spores survive for decades in comb, equipment and honey, and antibiotics can't kill them.
17. Stirring the brown remains with a stick and pulling it out slowly draws out a sticky rope about ½ to 1 inch long.
18. Close the hive and reduce the entrance; don't move any frames, honey or equipment and clean your tools and hands; contact the state apiary inspector to confirm and follow their instructions.
19. EFB usually kills larvae before capping; AFB kills them after capping.
20. Twisted or curled in the cell, yellowish to brown, looking melted or rubbery, with breathing tubes visible.
21. Any two of: feeding 1:1 syrup to simulate a flow; adding frames of healthy brood; requeening; shook swarm in severe cases.
22. Chalkbrood mummies the bees have dragged out.
23. A stretched-out larva with a dark, upturned head, like a small sac filled with fluid.
24. Any two of: keeping the hive warm, dry and ventilated, away from damp low spots; keeping the colony strong; requeening with hygienic stock; replacing old comb.
25. Sick bees defecate in the hive; house bees cleaning up swallow spores, which multiply in their guts.
26. No. Long confinement, thin syrup or moist food can also cause dysentery; a lab or microscope test is needed to confirm Nosema.
27. It doesn't kill the spores left on combs and equipment, so reinfection is possible.
28. Do a mite count; deformed wing virus is spread and made worse by varroa, so mite control is the fix.
29. Any three of: spotty brood; sunken or melted-looking larvae; uncapped cells with chewed pupae; bees with deformed wings; a dwindling adult population; high mite counts.
30. Sick bees look bald, shiny and greasy, and guard bees chew and harass them at the entrance, just as they would robbers.
31. Inside its breathing tubes (tracheae), in the thorax.
32. Nosema, some viruses and other problems cause the same crawling and weak flight; only a microscope check of the tracheae can confirm mites.
33. Bees pick up oil on their bodies, which makes it hard for mites to find and move onto young bees.
34. Into the soil outside the hive.
35. Beetle larvae are smaller and tougher, have spines on the back and legs only near the head, and don't spin webbing; wax moth larvae are bigger, softer, have extra fleshy legs along the body, and spin webs.
36. Away from the bees, beetles can multiply quickly in the supers and ferment the honey into slime.
37. The colony was weakened by something else first, often queen loss, and couldn't guard its combs.
38. At least 72 hours.
39. Naphthalene contaminates the wax and kills bees.
40. They move into hives for shelter when it turns cold, and the bees are clustered and can't guard the outer frames.
41. A skunk has to stand up and expose its belly to reach the entrance, where the bees can sting it; it also can't scratch at the entrance as easily.
42. A well-built, well-maintained electric fence, or moving the hives once a bear has found them.
43. At the edges and lower parts of the brood area, where the cluster couldn't cover it.
44. It starved.
45. Any three of: a failing or poorly mated queen; inbreeding; brood disease; varroa mites; queenlessness or laying workers; chilled brood.
46. Likely a pesticide kill; take photos and notes, collect 100+ bees in a clean container and freeze them, and report it quickly to your state department of agriculture.
47. One the plant takes up into its tissues, so it can end up in pollen and nectar and expose bees long after it was applied.
48. Move the hives at least 3 miles away; for short-lasting products, confining the bees during the spray may work.
49. A carpenter bee; no, honey bees don't bore into wood, and a carpenter bee has a shiny, hairless abdomen.
50. It has only two wings, very large eyes, short stubby antennae, and hovers in place; it can't sting.
51. Any two of: about ¾ inch long; dark body with a narrow waist; a strong yellow band on the fourth abdominal segment; yellow lower legs.

★ = a topic on the Georgia Certified Beekeeper exam list.