Diseases of The Honey Bee - Dysentery

Dysentery

Dysentery is a condition resulting from a combination of long periods of inability to make cleansing flights (generally due to cold weather) and food stores which contain a high proportion of indigestible matter. As a bee's gut becomes engorged with feces that cannot be voided in flight as preferred by the bees, the bee voids within the hive. When enough bees do this the hive population rapidly collapses and death of the colony results. Dark honeys and honeydews have greater quantities of indigestible matter.

Occasional warm days in winter are critical for honey bee survival; dysentery problems increase in likelihood if there are periods of more than two or three weeks with temperatures below 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius). When cleansing flights are few, bees will often be forced out at times when the temperature is barely adequate for their wing muscles to function, and large quantities of bees may be seen dead in the snow around the hives.

Colonies that are found dead in spring from dysentery will have feces smeared over the frames and other hive parts.

In very cold areas of North America and Europe, where honey bees are kept in ventilated buildings during the coldest part of winter, no cleansing flights are possible; under such circumstances, it is common for beekeepers to remove all honey from the hives and replace it with sugar water or high fructose corn syrup, which have nearly no indigestible matter.