> And it is a problem that could persist. If said beekeeper lost a swarm or two this past season... and that swarm survives the winter but then weakens and gets robbed over the summer.... this is a pernicious problem requiring the AFB (or any other brood disease) be dealt with ASAP.
I agree with the immediate destruction of a colony with clinical symptoms of AFB. But a swarm is much less likely to be a problem since a swarm clears the bacteria via digestion and hindgut elimination. The primary source of spreading AFB is beekeepers.
> Beekeeping practices to control AFB provide further evidence that vertical pathogen during swarming is of minor importance for this disease. To cure foulbrood-infected colonies, beekeepers shake the adult bees off the old diseased combs and force them to build new combs (Hansen and Brødsgaard, 1999). This treatment is similar to natural swarming since the swarm constructs new comb as it establishes the colony.
>Implications of horizontal and vertical pathogen transmission for honey bee epidemiology
Ingemar Fries, Scott Camazine - Apidologie 32 (2001) 199–214
https://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/pdf/2001/03/fries.pdf
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