Category: Farming

Spring In The Beehive – Time For A Bee Health Check?

Posted on by Les Ellison
Spring In The Beehive – Time For A Bee Health Check?

Spring In The Beehive – Time For A Bee Health Check?

Spring weather boosts honeybee activity and with it the risk of disease and colony collapse. Here’s a fast test to help hobbyist and commercial beekeepers keep a check on colony health.

It’s spring! And whether they know it or not, garden fruit growers and farmers will owe almost all of their future harvests to the growing number of enthusiast and commercial honeybee keepers.

Spring Is Here And The Bees Are Getting Busy

These early months of warmer and dryer weather, together with the increasing day length, give honeybees the boost they need to get out there and get busy.

Just as spring is time for the honeybees themselves to get active, March, April and May are months for the enthusiast, hobbyist and commercial beekeeper to really get involved in the seasonal monitoring of hive and colony health.

Know The Risks To Your Bees In Springtime

Vital as these fascinating and seemingly aerodynamically impossible little flyers are to human food security, they’re really only looking to their own growth and survival through the winter to come.

Knowing the risks ahead, and getting prepared for potentially devastating problems, is the best approach to maintaining the health of adult bees and their broods through spring and summer in preparation for autumn and winter.

Spring In the Beehive Month By Month

As March progresses, your honeybee colony will be growing quickly and might need a sugary food boost. If a check while cleaning the floor tray shows low in-hive reserves, a natural bee pollen paste might fill the energy gap and support the health of the emerging colony.

By April, the occasional drone (with its larger head and much bigger eyes) might appear as broods increase and colonies grow quickly. Now is the time to identify the queen and maybe block the queen from laying eggs in the honey ‘supers’ to ensure a future harvest of clean honey. The potential for swarming could also become a risk in the stronger hives.

Through May, the queen is laying across most of the brood box as nectar and pollen come in thick and fast. This is the time for some honey harvesting especially near oil seed rape fields, and for adding more ‘supers’. Weekly inspections will help you be ready to capture any swarming bees into another hive.

Increasing Warmth Increases The Risk Of Disease

Increasing hive activity brings increased risks to honeybee health as rising temperatures encourage predators and disease carrying parasites to become more active and more numerous.

This is why the spring months maybe the best time for enthusiast and commercial honey producers to get ahead of the growing risk by testing and responding quickly to results that indicate a present or potential health risk.

Mite Spotting: The All Important First Check

Knowing how to search out the 1.1mm to 1.7mm shell-shaped mite makes them easy to spot and count. Without the distinct body ‘segments’ typical of ants and spiders, the tell-tale shiny red-brown pinhead bodies and cluster of tiny legs help characterise Varroa destructor.

Methods for finding and counting the mites in a busy, active colony – including Natural Varroa Drop and Brood Uncapping – were tried and tested on the Advanced Beekeeping Course run by the National Diploma of Beekeeping (NDB) at Pershore College in Worcestershire.

One of their exercises was to compare different methods of monitoring the number of Varroa mites in a colony. Best-selling beekeeping magazine and international award winner, BeeCraft were invited to observe the process and its results. You can read about the Varroa project methods and results on the BeeCraft Varroa Webpage here.

Just What Does The Varroa Mite Do?

The UK Government Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) National Bee Unit summarises Varroa destructor as a parasite that feeds on the growing honeybee larva’s equivalent of the human liver. In their active months, adult worker bees can interact with neighbouring colonies spreading mites and worsening infestations.

The parasite drastically reduces brood resistance to a range of viruses including Deformed Wing Virus (DWV). The DWV virus either kills pupating larvae outright or, if they do emerge as adult bees, they show deformed wings and die within two to three days.

Varroa mites multiply on worker and drone larvae inside their brood cells and escape on the adult’s body as it leaves the chamber. High levels of spring and summer mite infestation can increase the risk of winter colony collapse where the majority of worker bees disappear leaving a hive that cannot sustain its queen and brood cells.

Risks of Over Treating Hives for Varroa

The National Bee Unit Best Practice Guidelines describe two types mite killing varroacides which, if used appropriately, can be effective at reducing Varroa mite infestation.

Single-action synthetic pesticides have a single, specific mode of action. Specificity brings with it the high risk of resistance leading to the reduced effectiveness appearing in the UK and Europe.

Non-synthetic pesticides have multiple actions which reduce the risk of resistance. While the NBU website recommends these ‘natural pesticides’ over synthetics, it also instructs that all applied varroacidal treatments should be recorded.

The National Bee Unit recommends treating for Varroa in all colonies of an apiary at the same time in order to reduce the risk of resistance and colony reinfection to and from nearby hives.

Monitoring And Recording Varroa Infestation

The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) National Bee Unit specialises in supporting hobbyist and commercial beekeepers. The NBU online publication Managing Varroa names the spring and early summer months as key to monitoring Varroa mite infestation.

Monitoring Varroa mite infestation, and effective testing for the potentially devastating diseases they carry, can save yours and other keepers’ colonies from expensive and increasingly ineffective antiviral treatments.

Testing Your Hives Reduces Overtreatment and Resistance

Spring and early summer testing for the paralysing ABPV (Acute Bee Paralysis Virus) and the malformed-wing and body-weakening DWV (Deformed Wing Virus) before any treatment. This approach will help reduce virus resistance and might save your entire colony when infection strikes.

For more detailed information on the symptoms, effects and treatment of these viruses simply click this link to our ‘Health Check Your Honey Bees’ page.

Simple, Fast Effective: The 3-in-1 DIY Bee Health Check

Professional veterinary laboratories use a DNA test known as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), to confirm varroa-borne infections. This is not a practical option for hobbyist, small scale and most other bee keeping enthusiasts. Fortunately, a reliable and easy to use diagnostic test kit is available ‘off the shelf’ which can give early warning of mite borne CBPV and DWV risks to hive health.

The Vetlab Supplies FASTest BEE 3T is the quick and easy diagnostic check for Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) and Acute Bee Paralysis Virus (ABPV) and includes an additional, third test, for the colony destroying Sac Brood Virus (SBV). SBV reduces larvae from healthy white to sickly yellow, then to a shrivelled dark brown or black ‘Gondola’ or ‘Chinese Slipper’ curved shape.

The Changing, Challenging World For Honeybees

In recent years, global warming has led to increased average and maximum temperatures in the UK and Ireland. Increasing hot-weather highs threaten instant, though short lived, crises for honeybee keepers due to the effects of heat and drought on bees, hives and food sources.

Rising average temperatures pose a more long-lasting danger as plant food sources fail to adapt rapidly enough to a hotter more arid environment. Worse still, predators and parasites better survive milder winters and become more active earlier in the new season.

Fighting these environmental ills may be beyond the means of beekeepers. But with an understanding of the challenge, a range of treatments which can prove effective and the pre-emptive advantage offered by modern diagnostic tests, the battle is anything but lost.

 

For further information on FASTestBee 3T and on the full range of animal health diagnostic kits please visit  www.vetlabsupplies.co.uk or telephone 01798 874657

Count Your Faecal Parasite Worm Eggs Before They Hatch

Posted on by Les Ellison
Count Your Faecal Parasite Worm Eggs Before They Hatch

Counting parasite worm eggs in the faeces from your animals is easy and economical with Vetlab Bespoke FEC starter kits, that include flotation solutions, veterinary quality microscopes and everything you need to carry out Faecal Egg Counts.

Internal parasites of grazing animals spread from one animal to another by infective eggs shed with the faeces of an infected animal. Parasite eggs hatch into the grazing pasture where the active worms spread out and are eaten by grazing animals repeating the cycle of infection and increasing the ‘worm burden’ of all exposed animals.

Worm eggs, passed out in the faeces of infected animals, can lie dormant through the winter to reinfect grazing animals when they return to pasture in the spring. Heavy worm burdens reduce growth rate, cause a loss of weight, body condition and increase vulnerability to infection resulting in emaciation and even death.

What Is A Faecal Egg Count?

A faecal egg count or FEC is a measure of the number of parasite worm eggs in an animal’s faeces (droppings). Results, presented as the number of worm eggs per gram (epg) of faeces, gives an indication of the level of infection or ‘worm burden’ in an individual animal or for the entire herd.

The Faecal Egg Count is a useful, non-invasive method for estimating the individual worm burden of grazing animals including horses, cattle, donkeys, sheep, goats, llamas and alpacas. Owners of a small number of animals may be able to check every individual animal regularly, while larger herds or commercial farms may rely on representative sampling rather than each individual animal.

Why Are Regular Faecal Egg Counts Necessary?

Zero or medically insignificant Faecal Egg Counts will reassure keepers as to the internal health of their animals and to the hygiene and cleanliness of their pasture and stables. Confirming that no medical intervention is necessary will save on costs, and ensure that any veterinary treatment required is targeted where it will bring most benefit.

Medicating animals only when necessary prevents the overuse of drug treatments. In recent years, the ready availability of anti-worm medicines has led to a ‘treat first, test… maybe’ approach by some keepers. Overexposure to unnecessary medication has led to increasing drug resistance in parasitic worms and the growing risk of all available treatments becoming ineffective.

How Often Should An FEC Be Carried Out?

In the UK, Vettimes reports that FEC testing should be performed in all horses at 8-12 week intervals throughout the grazing period (spring to early autumn). Testing should also be carried out at the end of winter if horses have been grazed outdoors frequently or for longer periods.

Alpaca and llama specialists, The British Alpaca Society recommends advice from your veterinarian as permissible levels of FEC may depend on the age/condition of the animal and the type of worm. As a general rule, says BAS-UK, it is common to treat far lower egg counts in alpacas than might be considered in other animals.

For Sheep, the industry led Sustainable Control of Parasites in Sheep (SCOPS) recommends regular FEC testing on a 2 to 4 weekly cycle throughout the grazing season. SCOPS recognises that collecting faecal samples from every animal in a commercial flock isn’t practical!

This SCOPS link tells you how best to get a reliable overview of the parasite burden in a large flock. Collecting fresh droppings from a representative number of animals for professional laboratory or DIY testing is suggested as a testing strategy.

Can I Carry Out Faecal Egg Counts On My Own Animals?

Collecting fresh faecal samples from your horses, cattle, donkeys, sheep, goats, llamas and alpacas is the first step in reliable DIY faecal egg counting. SCOPS recommends wearing gloves to collect faeces less than 1 hour old and washing hands thoroughly afterwards. For large flocks, sampling 10% of the animals is advised.

Samples can be sent to commercial veterinary laboratories for testing but, with a little practice and some basic laboratory equipment, owners and keepers can carry out their own DIY in-house FEC testing to support their vet in deciding if any further treatment is necessary.

What Laboratory Equipment And Supplies Do I Need for FEC Testing?

How much DIY faecal worm egg counting you choose to do yourself depends only on your level of self confidence, readiness to gain experience and access to the appropriate and readily available laboratory equipment and consumables.

The FEC process divides readily into four stages: recovery of appropriate faecal samples, parasite egg recovery, egg counting, and interpretation of results. Depending on those results, a fifth stage might involve any appropriate veterinary treatment and any necessary changes to pasturing, stabling and hygiene practice.

How Can I Start DIY Animal Faeces Sampling?

SCOPS recommends collecting a representative number of fresh (warm to the touch) faecal samples from your animals. Disposable gloves and hand cleanser are also recommended as the minimum level of protective hygiene. Everything you need to carry out your own hygienic sampling can be found on the Vetlab Supplies Laboratory Consumables pages

What Do I Need To Separate Parasite Eggs from Faeces?

Parasite eggs are less dense than the faecal material that contains them. Left for long enough, a dispersion of faeces in water would allow the eggs to float free of the faecal material. However, this process is too slow to be practical, so gravity needs a little help to speed things along.

Mixing the faeces with a solution that encourages the eggs to float and the faecal matter to sink is made easy with Vetlab Supplies Ready-Made and Bespoke Floatation Solutions.

How Do I Count The Number Of Worm Eggs In A Faeces Sample?

Counting worm eggs sounds like a difficult task. But with a few pieces of the right kit, and a little practice, keepers can become proficient at estimating the worm burden of their animals. This count will equip keepers with sufficient information to approach their vet for advice on the appropriate anti-worm treatment.

Parasite egg counting requires one of the easy to use and economically available microscopes as recommended by Vetlab Supplies. The Vetlab helpline can guide you through the process of selecting and obtaining a microscope appropriate to your need.

Counting parasite eggs is made easy by the use of the tried and tested McMaster Worm Egg Counting Slide. The McMaster Slide holds a fixed volume of the liquid from the faeces sample. The number of worm eggs in this volume of sample can be counted by viewing the slide under the microscope.

All of the equipment required is available to purchase individually or as part of a complete bespoke kit.

How Do I Know If My Animals Need Veterinary Treatment?

A simple maths formula, calculated from how much of the faecal sample was tested, how much flotation solution was added, and how many eggs were counted on the McMaster slide gives you and your vet a measure of the worm burden for the animal tested.

With this FEC knowledge, you will be able to discuss with your vet the best course of any required treatment and helping prevent the emergence of multi-resistant worm infections in your animals.

To find out more about our range of Bespoke Parasitology Starter kits and the Vetlab McMaster Worm Egg Counting Method visit our website: www.vetlabsupplies.co.uk or call Tel: 01798 874567

Simple Equine Tapeworm Testing: Straight From The Horses Mouth

Posted on by Les Ellison
Simple Equine Tapeworm Testing: Straight From The Horses Mouth

Regular testing for equine tapeworm in horses and donkeys with the Equisal Saliva Test and Bespoke FEC Kits can increase the effectiveness of anthelmintic treatments, reduce the risk of parasite resistance and promote the long-term health of your horses and donkeys.

Overtreatment Increases Parasite Resistance

Treatment with equine de-worming medicines, known as anthelmintics (AH), effectively controls the vast majority of intestinal parasitic worms (helminths). However, the ready availability of these same medicines has lead to their overuse as a quick and easy substitute for veterinary testing and livery stable hygiene.

Tolerance to AH drug treatments in parasitic worm populations ranges from ‘highly susceptible’ to ‘highly resistant’. Overexposure to AH treatment might kill the vast majority of parasites, but the more resistant worms – though initially fewer in number – may still survive and multiply.

Without competition from the more susceptible worms, the fewer highly resistant survivors thrive, breed and pass on their drug-resistance to the next generation. The outcome is that overmedication reduces the effectiveness of each AH treatment until no useful treatment option remains.

Stronger and Stronger Doses Are Not The Answer

Increasing anthelmintic resistance (AHR) means that even stronger doses of AH medicines are needed next treatment. Continued over-treatment with the same AH medicine again and again only strengthens the resistance of the surviving tapeworms.

Eventually, the treatment becomes ineffective or, worse still, only effective in a dose so strong as to risk a dangerously adverse reaction from the horse itself. Changing the drug of choice may only begin a further round of acquired resistance ending in yet another ineffective treatment.

Strategies To Avoid Acquired Drug Resistance

Constantly changing the AH regime means that the few survivors of one treatment are less likely to survive a second, different, treatment before further resistance develops. With twice-yearly laboratory testing and good stable hygiene, unnecessary and ineffective treatment can be avoided.

With no new anthelmintic treatment on the horizon, the future relies on changes in the behaviour of owners and keepers. New strategies to counter increasing drug resistance in digestive tract parasites include regular monitoring and treating medically only when necessary.

Testing before treating not only helps prevent the development of drug-resistant tapeworms, it reduces the cost of wasteful over-treatment. The British Horse Society recommends a planned timetable of spring and autumn testing with medication, only when justified by the test results.

Good Hygiene Is Key to Equine Health

The need to resort to new treatment strategies is, perhaps, an indication that previous parasite reduction regimes have not been effectively applied. A report by UK-VET EQUINE (2009), circulated by The Horse Trust identifies the key risk factors in the spread of AHR, including:

– Poor manure collection and cleaning regimes.
– Poor pasture and paddock management.
– Frequently changing and high density horse populations.
– Grazing of younger, more vulnerable horses with older animals.
– Lack of effective quarantine measures.

UK-VET EQUINE recommended a range of effective strategies to reduce these risk factors:

– Collection of faecal material at least twice weekly.
– Rest and rotation of pasture – especially on stud farms.
– An awareness that parasites can overwinter on pasture.
– An awareness that worm larvae can migrate into pasture from contaminated field edges.

Types of Equine Intestinal Worm Infections

Horses and donkeys are at risk of infection and reinfection from a range of intestinal parasitic worms collectively known as Helminths. These worms fall broadly into three groups classified by veterinary laboratories as flukes (trematodes), tapeworms (cestodes) and roundworms (nematodes).

Animal charity Blue Cross warns that animals kept in poor, overstocked or unhygienic conditions are vulnerable to serious illness caused by five subtypes of intestinal parasitic worm:

Large Redworms (strongyles). Living in the horse’s intestine, they cause a swollen abdomen, internal bleeding, colic, weight loss and diarrhoea.

Small Redworms (cyathostomins). Feed on the intestinal tissue, these worms burrow into the gut wall to lie dormant through winter months emerging in early spring to cause weight loss, loss of condition, distended abdomen, colic and diarrhoea.

Roundworms (ascarids). Growing up to 40cm long, roundworms exploit the immature immune systems of foals under four years to cause inflammation and obstruction resulting in poor growth, lethargy, coughing, weight loss, loss of condition, distension and colic.

Tapeworms (anoplocephela). Tapeworms attach to the gut wall at the junction of the small intestine and large intestine causing impaction, colic, weight loss and even physical damage.
Tapeworm infestation is a particular problem for horse and donkey keepers because tapeworm eggs are too small for detection by routine centrifugation and McMaster slide FEC methodology.

Assessing The Worm Burden: Faecal Egg Counting

Equipped with a veterinary microscope, flotation solutions and a McMaster counting slide , the tell-tale eggs of most intestinal worms can be separated from horse faecal material. Faecal egg counts can accurately estimate the degree of any worm burden.

The tale-tale eggs of equine tapeworm are too small as to be accurately recovered and counted using the tried and tested methods of centrifugation and McMaster faecal egg counting. Detection of equine tapeworm infestation requires a new and innovative veterinary test.

Simple Saliva-Swab Test for Tapeworm in Horses
EquiSal Tapeworm Saliva Testing Kit for Horses is an Enzyme Linked Immunosorbant Assay test known as ELISA. The Equisal ELISA test searches out any antibodies produced by a horse’s immune system in response to tapeworm infection.

The EquiSal Tapeworm test works like an antibody blood test but uses saliva which horse
owners can collect themselves using a specially designed mouth swab as shown in this video . The swab is then simply packed in the preservative provided in the kit and posted to the laboratory in the freepost bag provided.

How Good Is The Equisal Saliva Tapeworm Test?

In a 2016 large-scale stables trial of Equisal, only 22% of the 749 horse tested were found to require veterinary treatment. This means that 78% – 583 horses – might have been unnecessarily and expensively treated if Equisal testing had not been carried out.

The economics of Equisal testing speak for themselves. Targetted treatment is not only economical, it also reduces the frightening prospect of runaway drug resistance resulting in debilitating and potentially lethal equine tapeworm infections.

To Treat or Not to Treat – That is The Question

The only 100% accurate way to measure a horse’s tapeworm burden would be count the number of worms within the horse’s intestines. In validation studies, the EquiSal Tapeworm test only misreported horses as tapeworm free when fewer than 20 tapeworms were present.

Parasitologists consider horses and donkeys showing fewer than 20 tapeworms to have a non-pathogenic medical condition. This means that these tests confirm the EquiSal Tapeworm Test as a success in identifying all pathologically significant tapeworm burdens.

Vets and stable owner can find all their technical questions about Equisal Testing answered in detail here, on Vetlab’s EquiSal Tapeworm FAQs page.

Hedgehogs to Llamas: The McMaster DIY Faecal Egg Count

Posted on by Les Ellison
Hedgehogs to Llamas: The McMaster DIY Faecal Egg Count

Simple, reliable and cost effective, the McMaster slide Faecal Egg Count (FEC) test equips you to monitor the parasitic load and intestinal health of your pet, commercial and rescue animals.

Left untreated, parasitic intestinal worms in animals from hedgehogs to llamas and alpacas can cause serious illness and even death to infected animals.

A wide variety of parasitic worms can reproduce inside loved and valuable animals. Infection spreads through millions of microscopic eggs shed into the faeces of even one host animal to contaminate shared bedding, stabling, pasture or foodstuff.

Impact Of Covid 19 On Routine Faecal Parasite Egg Monitoring

For pet, commercial and rescue animal keepers, restricted access to routine veterinary monitoring was one of many distressing side effects of the Covid 19 pandemic.
Managing the risks to animal health, even by such readily treatable conditions as parasitic intestinal worms, became much more critical in the absence of regular and reliable testing.

Do It Yourself Diagnostic Faecal Egg Counting (FEC) Techniques

Conveniently, for pet, commercial and rescue animal keepers, the veterinary standard diagnostic for intestinal worms can now be simply, reliably, and economically carried out as a DIY in-house test.
Although microscopic parasitic intestinal worms can be difficult to observe and identify, their eggs – and their potential to cause significant further infection – are larger and more easily observed and identified.

Identifying Intestinal Worms And Estimating Parasitic Load

Identifying and estimating an animal’s ‘parasitic load’ uses pre-prepared solutions and basic laboratory equipment, readily available from Vetlab Supplies. Vetlab’s easy-to-follow laboratory method guides you through the taking of samples, preparing the test, examination under the microscope and identifying the type and likely numbers of parasitic intestinal worms.
The straightforward method is known to veterinary surgeons as the McMaster Slide FEC (Faecal Egg Count) Test. A laboratory standard since 1939, The McMaster Slide is basically a small glass cavity of known volume with a calibrated transparent cover that can be viewed under a microscope.

The McMaster Slide Standard Laboratory Faecal Egg Count (FEC)

The McMaster Slide Test relies on the simple fact that, in specified flotation solutions, parasite worm eggs float, while most of the other solid matter in animal faeces tends to sink. So if the number of parasite eggs in a measured weight of faeces can be counted, then the parasitic load in the animal’s digestive system can be easily calculated.
And, because the eggs of different parasites have different characteristics, so the careful use of a veterinary microscope and a guided choice of specific flotation solutions, the type and species of intestinal worm can be identified for relevant treatment and control.

Identify Parasites With Off The Shelf Or Custom Made Flotation Solutions

Vetlab Supplies offers a range of off the shelf and customised faecal flotation solutions ideal for general and species specific egg count testing. Matching the density (specific gravity) of the flotation solution to the density of the target worm species eggs allows a qualitative as well as quantitative estimate of an animal’s parasitic load.

For McMaster Slides manufactured in glass and robust acrylic, together with all necessary flotation solutions, as well as economical easy to set up and use microscopes, just click or search Vetlab Supplies F.E.C Kits & Equipment

 

For further information visit our website www.vetlabsupplies.co.uk or call 01798 874567

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