>
>   Do you
>use terramycin on a prophylactic basis?  If you do, and have not had AFB,
>why do you do so?  Because you do not want to see AFB?


I used to, but am trying to get away from it. No TM this year. When I did
use it, it was only in the spring as a dust. I have never tried to "cure"
AFB with drugs. If I find disease...scale included...I burn...period.
         Over the last four years, I have been attempting to get all my
equipment into use. I had several hundred hive bodies of brood comb, that
came from the orchard I bought out. So, I rogued out the bad combs, and
burnt everything that wasn't in good shape....bottoms, bodies, etc. I have
been raising nucs, and overwintering them. When transferred to 10 frame
equipment, I used the cleaned up equipment on them solely. That way I knew
where the disease might be, and where to look.  Sure enough, I found some.
So, no untested equipment goes into established colonies. The nucs are easy
to check for AFB. The honey producing colonies are checked when honey is
taken off....so not to spread disease through supers. Unless I get infected
from a neighbor's bees, I think I can control AFB without TM.


>I do not use Terra., and burn all frames from any hive where I see AFB.  And
>I do see it once or twice a year (once this year).  If I used Terra., I
>would either never see AFB or would only see it rarely, but it would still
>be there!


If you used dust in the spring...to control infection from outside the
yard, and stop before the honey flow...if AFB was present in the hive,
wouldn't it show up later in the summer? At that point burning should be
the treatment of choice. Would this plan not keep your equipment clean?

Mike

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