A few weeks ago on this list I described symptoms that I thought might 
be a strange looking American foulbrood.  Larvae dying extended in 
capped cells, melting down and forming scales that look just like 
American foulbrood scale.  In the mean time, USDA lab confirmed that my 
samples are of European foulbrood.

A month ago, I had 8 hives with symptoms and all other hives looked 
great.  Thinking it could be AFB I removed them before they died and was 
careful about sterilizing my hive tool etc.  Now a month later I am 
finding EFB in pretty much all of my hives, some with classic symptoms 
(larvae yellow or dying in coiled stage) and some with the larvae dying 
under the cappings.  Some hives have cleared it up on their own and most 
have become worse.  The only hives being killed by it right now are 
splits with new queens.

Since it must be extremely contagious to go from 8 hives to 350 in a 
month I am wondering if anyone else has had an outbreak like this and 
how long EFB typically persists on used comb.  I read somewhere on the 
internet that it can survive for 3 years on brood comb, but I haven't 
found a scientific study.  Right now I am medicating the worst hives 
with OTC and making honey with most of the decent hives.  I am trying to 
avoid medicating all of them since we are going to be making honey 
constantly until October with all the rain this year.  As they all 
appear to have it I am no longer concerned about mixing frames from 
infected hives.

--Jeremy Rose
San Luis Obispo, CA

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