> As far as I am aware, up to now sampling for spores, in an
> operational way, has been restricted to drawing samples from drums of
> honey.  This kind of sampling is very easy to do, but provides
> information on strictly an operation wide basis; perhaps a little too
> gross scale to make disease management decisions on an apiary-level.

There are reasons for this.  Information costs money.  If the cost of the
information exceeds the useful value to the beekeeper or regulator, then the
information is of academic interest only.  The precision of such information is
also a determinant in its usefulness.

The cost of sampling increases linearly with the number of samples and the
number of locations at which samples are collected.  The overall accuracy of
averaged results increases with more samples, but as the number of samples
increases, the chance of mixing up samples increases also.  This is particularly
true if a number of people are involved, working at widely scattered locations
such as in a commercial operation -- the type of operation that could best
benefit from such sampling and which represents by far the bulk of American
production and pollination.

No price for individual hive sampling is presented above, but at $5 per sample,
which I suspect is a very conservative estimate for the cost of collecting,
collating, preparing and testing each sample, that would mean a $20,000 bill for
one detailed pass over my current operation.  That is a large expense,
particularly since we can detect no active foulbrood or scale in our hives due
to the work of previous researchers who developed effective, inexpensive and
simple methods of control.  That we cannot find AFB is not for a lack of
looking.  I have a reward of $20 *per brood box* for any employee who can find
any AFB anywhere in our hives and they bring in anything that even remotely
resembles AFB in hopes of collecting.

Assuming that this test is useful in practice for someone such as myself,
perhaps an apiary average sample would be the first step, followed by more
detailed examination of any yard that shows signs of trouble.

That approach also has its problems, not the least of which is that there is no
definite correlation between sampled spore levels and subsequent outbreaks or
understanding of how 'subclinical' infection can result in increased spore
counts. This is particularly true where an effective medication system is being
used.  The honey bee's tendency to rob honey over a distance also confuses the
matter as does the use of drugs and the genetics of the bees in question.

Alarmingly, in concentrating on individual hive sampling for AFB at a time when
we are threatened with an easily controlled variant of AFB, I believe I detect
the influence of the idealism of people who walk upside down in a smaller and
very different kind of world from the one I know.  I have long been intending to
write an article to question the conclusions in their yellow bible and its
applicability to North America, but heresy is not an easy job; it involves a lot
of hard work.

The book in question relies on unpublished studies, easy sweeping
generalizations, unsubstantiated assumptions and wishful thinking to prove its
thesis, and the work involved in properly challenging all the logical errors in
that book would be in the same order as writing a PhD thesis.  Dealing with the
topic properly would involve finding and proving or disproving all the points
the authors did not have the time or will to deal with rigorously.

Unfortunately for real understanding of the AFB problem, and partly I suspect
due to its lack of rigour and the simplicity of its conclusion, the book has
wide appeal to beekeepers and regulators and has been hugely popular.  Like
'Lord of the Rings', has developed a cult following among those who wishfully
seek overly simple solutions to complex problems and to live in a world of the
past.

Also unfortunately for those of us who are commercial beekeepers living in North
America in the present, such ideas distract our researchers from the real
problems in our real world.  We don't need improved and more detailed sampling
for after the damage is done.

We need PREVENTION.

Proven compounds are currently available and in unapproved use by beekeepers.

We need approval for them.

Now.

allen
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A Beekeeper's Diary: http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Diary/