Conrad Sigona wrote:
> Now I'm really confused. If the antibiotic must be fed to the larva to
> work, how come we don't have to provide one dose to each generation? It
> would seem that a once-a-year prophylactic treatment would not be enough.
 
        A prophylactic treatment, by definition, protects only at the time of
use to prevent infection. This type of treatment is useful there is a
risk of infection from a source outside the colony, such as robbing of
diseased colonies. There are pitfalls to this. If there is a source of
infected honey at a time that you are not treating, your bees may be
infected. In some areas this can be a serious problem.
        So, to answer your question, we cannot treat each generation because we
must get on to honey production. Durng this time our bees are at risk of
infection. If you are in a high risk area you may have problems. Good
reason to have apiary inspection in your area.
        I don't want to make this too long but want to say that if a colony has
had a bad case of AFB, or some of the colonies in an operation have,
there may be constant outbreaks of AFB from infected honey in the colony
or from "super infection". I know this happens to some operations, they
must treat all the time to sty alive, this is where you don't want to
go.
                                                Vince