> A couple of years ago I tried an experiment, and set up a test yard of
> colonies that only showed one to a few infected larvae, to see if they 
> would
> clean up the disease spontaneously (bees not selected for FKB hygiene, and
> no antibiotics given).  They didn't--the disease increased.  Ditto with
> infected comb removal.

Consider a million AFB spores will fit on a pin. Also researchers have said 
bees can not clean up all the spores from a heavy AFB infection.
Althogh keeping a hive around with a heavy AFB problem is illegal I have 
observed many such experiments. My opinion from these operations is you 
either treat or burn heavily infected hives. I would never leave AFB for the 
bees to try an clean up.

I have been asked by researchers my opinion.
My answer was I would never keep a hive with heavy AFB in the area of my 
bees with a heavy infection.
Rothenbuler said a bee could be bred to survive AFB and clean up AFB and 
started the issue.
A waste of researcher time in my opinion. Burn or treat I say.


each situation i have been brought in on  has been different. One looks at 
the whole situation and then decides on a course of action.

> I currently avoid any prophylactic treatment, since I want to flush out 
> any
> infected colonies, so that I don't spread the spores, nor sell 
> contaminated
> nucs.

Please email your GPS locations of your hives in almonds so I can aviod the 
area( only joking Randy but send anyway!)


> I'm curious on Bob's take on this.  Do your large outfits simply treat, or
> do they burn?

Each situation is different. Most treat prophylactially so little AFB is 
seen. I use terramycin as I am not fond of tylosin. Most use tylosin in 
syrup instead of in powdered form.

 Burning is certainly used for serious AFB comb. Usually the bees go also. 
Once comb is shotgun AFB burning is the only solution in my opinion.

 If AFB turns up in a large holding yard of several thousand hives all the 
hives are treated. treating early solves the problem but does not remove the 
spores.

I treat and have not had to deal with AFB. Not treating as Brian says he is 
going to do may lead to some serious burning down the road.  May work if he 
keeps his bees isolated. I always tell people if AFb is bad enough you can 
smell the problem when you get out of the bee truck then better burn.

i had a beekeeper  which had to burn all 35 of his hives with heavy AFB last 
year and start over. The beekeeper took a master beekeeper course and was 
told to treat fall and spring (legal in the U.S.) for AFB. he did and had 
good bees and bumper crops his first two years . Then he joined beesource 
and a beekeeper told him treating for AFB was a waste of time.
The beekeeper is a member of the Midwestern beekeepers and drove into my 
partners operation with a frame stinking of AFB. My partner said toss in his 
burn barrel. The beek said " can you run some tests?" My partner said "not 
needed". Seen plenty of AFB through the years.
The next Saturday the beek brought a frame to show me. I told the beek the 
same thing. The beek said all his comb was similar.Burn those frames , 
scorch the boxes etc. and start over I advised . You mainly treat as a 
preventative or light infections.

Commercial beekeepers do things many times because the methods work.

"an once of prevention is worth a pound of cure "

bob

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