Hate to burst anyone's bubbles, but the Holst Milk Test is a terrible AFB
screening tool. It is so poor, it is used as an object lesson in contrasting
"Positive" vs "Negative" predictive values in COLOSS: 

 

http://www.coloss.org/beebook/II/epidemiology/1/1/3

 

"Thus, when a holst milk test is. positive we are 99 % certain the sample
does contain American Foulbrood spores, while if the Holts milk test comes
back negative, we are 53 % sure that the sample does not have American
foulbrood spores."

 

So, a negative result is no better than a coin flip at detecting AFB.

That's no help at all to a beekeeper.

 

There are test kits with better false negative rates, but the problem with
those is getting a sample that is an accurate representation of the hive,
one that would contain some spores.   My wife has quite a sensitive little
nose, she once smelled foulbrood when she opened the car door arriving at a
friend's apiary, and the hive was 25 yards away, with only one frame that
needed to be scrapped.  

 

> God bless Dave Cushman

 

Dave Cushman asked several people, myself among them, to spider and archive
his site, and keep it up after he was no longer among us.  He may thereby
become the first "immortal" beekeeper, in that people will continue to thank
him, many perhaps not even realizing that he passed on.

 

 


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