>
>
> >When I had my first big hit last spring, the advice I got was to medicate
> and it would go away. IMHE, and as detailed in the UK research, that is not
> what happens. You may suppress symptoms successfully but you set yourself
> up for a high chance of rebloom in the next season.


Ruth, could you please cite the research detailed in the UK?  I reviewed
the two studies below. which do not necessarily support your statement
above.  In the UK, for some unfathomable reason, they apply OTC as a single
dose in syrup.  We don't do this in the US, since we know that the
antibiotic rapidly degrades in syrup, and that antibiotics need to be
applied as an extended dose.  In the following two studies, when I reviewed
the actual results, it appeared to me that, despite the substandard
application method, very good results were often obtained --and differences
often being not statistically significant.

I'm in complete agreement that hive destruction or shook swarm will better
remove infective material from an apiary.  But I'm not yet convinced that
it is necessary.  In my own operation, in which we've seen sporadic
occurrences of EFB for many years, we've found that spot treatment with
oxytet has kept the incidence of disease to completely acceptable levels.
I cannot say that this will be the case for all operations.

Helen M Thompson & Michael A Brown (2001) Is contact colony treatment with
antibiotics an effective control for European foulbrood?, Bee World, 82:3,
130-138, DOI: 10.1080/0005772X.2001.11099515

 Ruth J. WAITE (2003) Controlling European foulbrood with the shook swarm
method and oxytetracycline in the UK
  Apidologie 34: 569–575

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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