"Where can newbie learn? I would be willing to spend a few dollars on a 
hands-on class."

Join your local beekeepers' association and,with them, visit other 
people's apiaries. I have seen AFB in the field only twice in 36 years. 
  The first time was at a BKA apiary visit.  The picture of the 'roping' 
test is in Hooper & Morse's Encyclopaedia and I was standing just 
behind the cameraman as he took it.

The second time was when the BKA had a visit from the Bee Inspector and 
we did a tour of apiaries.  At the last site where a semi-commercial 
beekeeper had 15 hives on oilseed rape, it was late in the afternoon 
and most people had gone home, on the 13th hive the Inspector found a 
couple of suspicious cells which failed the roping test, meaning that 
there was an instant 'standstill order' on the apiary.   The test was 
later confirmed by the Ministry laboratory resulting destruction by 
fire.  The beekeeper, (now a Bee Inspector himself) had only very 
recently bought the hives and so was able to get his money back.

I did once spend a day out with a Bee Inspector when she was doing 
follow-up visits to apiaries that had been diagnosed with EFB and had 
been treated by the shook swarm method which had not been effective in 
every case  It seemed to be very effective against varroa though as, 
knowing we were coming, the beekeeper on one of the sites had given his 
bees a first treatment with Apiguard a week earlier and was going to 
make the second application while we had the hives open.  The row of 
hives, about 10 as I recall, mostly had between 0 and 2 mites dropped, 
the exception being one with a drop of 5 mites.

Chris




  

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