> They also recommend new equipment and foundation.  In fact, bees do
> not like new equipment and prefer used.

While there is no more valuable commodity than drawn comb in good condition,
I am intrigued that bees are said to have this preference.  Is there any
empirical evidence for this, or is this anecdote?

> As for fear of disease, disease is everywhere and manageable, but 
> people scare newbies with the possibility and exaggerate the
> implications. 

I have hard data on this.  
In VA, hobby beekeepers bought nucs often, and some of them struggled with
foulbrood as a result, as production of nucs for in-state sale was
unregulated, and mostly uninspected.  When varroa became endemic, nucs often
crashed in fall, indicating that they had been split from badly-infested
colonies.   Here in NYC, we have discouraged the buying of nucs from outside
the city, and we treat all packages we distribute with oxalic acid before
delivery.  As a result, we have had zero cases of foulbrood since 2006, and
we have some varroa-free areas.  We also have no elderly beekeepers that are
giving up the craft and selling old gear, another advantage over rural
settings, specifically Long Island, who continue to suffer from this
problem.  Not to knock elderly beekeepers, but they tend to have a
diminished sense of smell, and steadily deteriorating eyesight.

> Granted, out of control AFB is serious, but a little
> education is all it takes to recognize and deal with 
> it in the early stages.

The statement above evinces a lack of experience in mentoring novices.  Even
with an absolutely free classroom course that starts in fall, and runs every
other week into June, plus regular workshops in our training apiaries,
beer-and-Q&A sessions, and other events through the beekeeping "season",
I've never seen a first or second-year beekeeper correctly identify AFB.
Lots of EFB false alarms, or AFB is not detected in "early stages".  The
problem is not education, it is the bipolar state of novices - hubris or
panic, nothing in-between.

I am a big proponent of the purchase of drawn honey super combs to give a
new colony a boost, but in my view, a new beekeeper is better-served if
allowed to begin with a small colony (package or 3-frame spilt) headed by a
known docile, marked queen. Training wheels.  Even when wearing a full
beesuit and gloves, the size of the colony itself can be intimidating to
many.  You'd be amazed how many first-timers, despite being dressed in full
regalia, have to be reminded to *breathe* when looking into their first
colony.   


NB: We are not more varroa-free, despite being on a small archipelago off
the coast of the USA, due to a for-profit seller of packages who refuses to
treat his packages before sale.  His reasoning seems to be that he would
rather sell someone a new package every year, and the combination of his
untreated packages and his expensive "be a beekeeper in 4 easy lessons"
course tends to make that such a reality, that we have to run a remedial /
rehab effort to help the refugees fleeing those tactics.

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