As usual, there is a crash of philosophy vs practicality here.

I've dealt with AFB over the years in many ways, from twice a year
prophylactic treatments, to breeding for AFB resistant stock.  Both work.

What I found was that, at least in my area, that the material and labor
costs of prophylactic treatments with OTC outweighed the cost of simply
burning the frames of those colonies that came down with AFB.  Since I sell
a large number of nucs each spring, it is a sales point for me to be able
to say that the buyers don't need to continue antibiotic treatments to
suppress residual spores in my frames.

The release  of tylosin changed things a bit.  If used illegally in syrup
(as opposed to dusting), then it is pretty cheap, and has been widely
adopted as a fall treatment by commercial beekeepers.  I haven't seen any
data on spore loads in their equipment, but the bees apparently clean
things up with time.

I don't use tylosin that way, since it is a great medication to use for
spot treatment if needed, and wholesale use of the product prophylactically
will simply lead to resistant AFB, and likely residues in honey.  I feel
that it is illegal and irresponsible for beekeepers to use it in that way.

In summary, from a purely practical standpoint, I find that close
inspection of colonies each year, coupled with an aggressive program to
burn any colonies with AFB (generally saving the bees with "shake and
bake"), with spot treatment of adjacent colonies when I find a case, keeps
AFB to a very low level in my operation.

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

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