Hello all, This year was the first since 2006 that I have seen cases of American Foulbrood. One case was a very slight infection (two or three frames in the entire hive had a couple of cells of AFB). This was in a hobbiest's new hive that she had purchased from another hobbiest. The infection was so light that we simply removed the affected frames and treated. The other case was a complete breakdown in a feral hive I found in a wall. The combs were completely black and nearly every brood cell had AFB scales or roping pupae. Interestingly, the wall had 3 other hives that were unaffected only a matter of feet from the AFB hive. All of the wall hives appeared to have been present for at least a few years, but probably more like a decade or more. I did a removal on one of the wall hives, and have noted that the queen-stock for this hive is very prone to supercedure. It has been in my back yard since February, but goes queenless every other month. Just when I think it is dead, I check to find several frames completely filled with brood. The chronically broken brood cycles surely help to prevent AFB or Varroa from building up (the hives had no symptoms of mites when I removed them, despite having about 50% drone comb). Of course the hive never makes any honey. I am always worried about AFB, but am still not seeing it at all in my operation, despite doing commercial pollination, buying used equipment, and never treating. I consistently look for AFB symptoms in each of my nearly 300 hives but have been lucky enough to avoid it so far. When I first started beekeping, I found AFB in several of my hives but was able to stop it before it spread. In my area, there are many new beekeepers just getting started with one or two hives. I worry that they will be a source for AFB infection, as many of them hardly ever look inside the hives. I am trying to educate people that they should look for anything weird with the brood and diligently correct problems before they spread. --Jeremy Rose San Luis Obispo, CA *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm