Gentlemen

Sorry to come back to AFB, its just that I have a particular interest in bee
diseases (and queen rearing, swarm control, gentle bees etc etc. Honey,
horrible sticky stuff, will leave that to you) and think I am a better
beekeeper than chemist - many have corrected me regarding the chemical that
was used for dry cleaning purposes, "The chemical is carbontetrachloride -
C-Cl4", copied from Michael Palmer's mail so you can now blame him if it is
wrong. Thank you Michael and all.

First a promotion. American Foul Brood was found locally at the end of the
1999 season, and the colonies were destroyed. The beekeeper is a member of
Ludlow & District Beekeepers' Association of which I am Secretary. I have
pushed hard to ensure that the business side of our Annual General Meeting
on 5 February 2000 will quickly be dispensed with, and we will then receive
an illustrated talk by Mr Robin Hall, the Regional Bee Inspector, on Foul
Brood Recognition. HOPEFULLY sealed samples will be available to inspect.

ANY beekeeper within easy travelling distance of Shropshire should not miss
the opportunity to attend this presentation, to be able to observe the signs
and symptoms as they appear in the comb is such a valuable tool when working
one's own colonies. Its free admission (raffle pays for the hall hire) and
anyone wanting further details can contact me at [log in to unmask]

Earlier this morning I downloaded messages from James Bach and Martin
Braunstein which appear to be in opposition to each other. James suggests
that scraping frames clean is probably sufficient to remove the 50,000
spores needed to re-infect a colony. I have no doubt that this number of
spores could probably be contained on a pinhead. Martin states that he
believes AFB was imported into Argentina in the candy used to ship a
consignment of queens. A lot of pinheads in the small amount of candy used
but it proves to me the insidious nature of this disease, just cannot be
treated anything other than treacherous. Consequently I will strictly
promote and adhere to the UK doctrine of destroying bees and comb,
sterilising what is left with the gas torch and (for my own colonies) avoid
the antibiotics like the plague.

May I ask James if I would be correct in thinking that my bees already have
AFB and EFB, together with many of the other bee diseases, are they all
endemic in my hives, just needing something to push them over the edge? That
something might be beekeeper induced stress as in the case of Nosema (or in
my own case, I believe in the early days of Varroa, that was the agent).
Could the mite also be the cause of the breakdown of natural immunity to
major bee diseases like AFB and EFB?

Ken Hoare in Shropshire (where that white stuff gets deeper, and deeper, and
....)