Honey Bee Lab Diagnosis
Our Lab In Emmett, Idaho
Today we do not have many options for local honey bee diagnosis for hobbyists or commercial operations in the treasure valley. That is where Emmett Royal Honey’s Bee Lab comes into play. We run a diagnosis on them currently for only tracheal mites and Nosema (during this process we will also provide you info on anything else we find on or in your honey bees including Varroa).
Currently, we do not accept shipments, you can drop them off at our lab in Emmett or we can make arrangements to pick them up.
Please contact us before dropping them off. Our contact info is on our contact page.
Once we receive the bees, we will send you our detailed prognosis within 48 hours.
How To Collect Bees For Diagnosis (for our lab).
Since we test your bees for both tracheal mites and Nosema. You can place them all in a single jar (unless using option 3).
Types of honey bees to collect:
1. Honey bees crawling on the ground in front of the hive: this is a symptom of both Nosema and tracheal mites.
2. Honey bees with K-wing (you can see all four segments of the honey bee’s wings while they are walking around. This is a symptom of both Nosema and tracheal mites)
Approximately 100 honey bees are recommended. If you cannot gather all 100 honey bees from the top two options then you can move on to the third option to gather the rest – if you doing the third option please put those bees in a separate jar so we have a small sample of the first two collecting options.
3. Older honey bees (found in front of the hive or on honeycombs)
State and National Labs
Idaho Inspector
Suppose you suspect your hive has succumbed to EFB or AFB; we recommend reaching out to your local apiary inspector immediately. For Idaho, you can fill out a form for an inspection from the Idaho State Department Of Agriculture: https://agri.idaho.gov/main/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Inspection-Request-Form_19_01_10.pdf or call their Field Services Office at 208-332-8650 (Treasure Valley) or 208-736-2195 (Magic Valley).
Pesticide Diagnosis
For pesticide diagnosis, you can reach out to the USDA lab at https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/lab-testing/nsl
Free National Lab Tests
The bee research laboratory in Beltsville, MD is under the USDA and there is no charge for their service – the process takes a long time to get your results back(many months in most cases). They examine bacterial, fungal, and microsporidian diseases and two mites (Varroa and Tracheal). They also make determinations about Nosema.
You can learn more about their free Bee Disease Diagnosis Service page, and here is a link on how to submit samples to the USDA bee lab.
