At 09:22 PM 6/27/96 -0400, you wrote:
>What to do with AFB colonies?
>
>First, check with your local Department of Agriculture to find out what
>options are available to you.  The laws vary, and what I can do in Maryland
>is not necessarily legal elsewhere.
>
>Two things are here to potenially save: the bees and the equipment.
>
>Assuming it's legal, some people will save both by feeding Terramycin.
>  While Terramycin will render the disease inactive, the spores will still be
>viable.  Hence, once you elect to go the Terramycin route, you are locked
>into it forevermore.
>
>Personally, I would (indeed have) killed AFB infected colonies, then get the
>gear fumigated.   In Maryland, we have an Ethelyne Dioxide (ETO) chamber that
>is run by the State Department of Agriculture.   It does a good job.
>
>Other fumigation methods are also effective, but all methods require special
>equipment and training, and are dangerous if you don't have the training and
>equipment (in other words, don't try this at home).
>
>W. G. Miller
>Gaithersburg, MD
>
Here are some other ideas.  Remember, however, that you are limited by what
your area considers legal.
 
If the frames are heavily infested - remove and burn, but only the heavily
infested ones.
 
Mix up some TM and icing sugar 1:5 and dust a heaping tablespoon of this
mixture over the end bars  -  1 spoonful on each end.  Repeat this every
week.  Do this for each brood chamber.  If you plan to collect honey you
should stop this 2 weeks before the flow.  Start again after the flow.  It
is nice to get about 3 treatements before and after the flow and I suggest
that you will have cleaned up the equipment.  Sure the spores will still be
around but they are likely in the equipment that all of us have anyway and
likley TM is part of all of our management.
 
Eric Abell
Gibbons, Alberta Canada
(403) 998 3143
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