Here’s an interesting study out of Sweden from Locke et al exploring a couple recent themes – Dr. Goodwin’s research features heavily:

 

An integrated management strategy to prevent outbreaks and eliminate infection pressure of American foulbrood disease in a commercial beekeeping operation <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167587718307906?via%3Dihub> 

 

‘The aim of this study was to monitor the epidemiology of AFB disease over several years to evaluate the efficacy of a preventive management strategy. The strategy was designed to incorporate early disease detection with apiary quarantine in order to reduce both the incidence of AFB outbreaks and the potential for further spread of the disease within a large-scale commercial beekeeping operation and to present a sustainable preventive chemical-free solution to mitigate AFB disease.’

 

Using shook swarms directed by adult bee spore count assays:

 

‘Over the course of this 5 year study, clinical symptoms were no longer observed after the first screening in 2012. More importantly, the proportion of apiaries harbouring P. larvae spores decreased from 74% to 4% demonstrating that early detection together with an altered management regime, with the goal to reduce the overall infection pressure, can significantly reduce the risk of disease transmission to further colonies, apiaries, or even beekeepers. From an epidemiological perspective, this study demonstrates that AFB disease dynamics respond significantly to altered management practices and that localized disease eradication is possible.’

 

And then there is this:

 

‘When high levels of P. larvae spores were detected in an apiary composite sample, the individual colony samples from that apiary were cultured. In all cases, P. larvae was detected in only 1–2 colonies while all other colonies from the same apiary (10–12 colonies) had low to undetectable levels. Natural transmission pathways such as drifting or robbing are density dependent with more frequent AFB outbreaks in high colony density (Lindström et al., 2008b), which is typical within apiculture and was the case with the beekeeping operation in this study. Therefore, it was expected to see a higher proportion of colonies within a contaminated apiary actually containing P. larvae bacterial spores. The fact that this was not the case suggests that the drifting is not a relevant transmission route for disease outbreaks even at an extreme local scale between hives in close proximity. This result supports the notion that beekeeping practices are likely the primary transmission route causing disease (Fries and Camazine, 2001; Lindström et al., 2008b).’


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