> Well, neither Dr. Spivak, not Steve Taber are here to respond, but I will
> point out that neither of them recommends harboring disease in order to
> develop resistance.

Well, let's ask Aaron.   Maybe I was dreaming, but I thought I am sure that
was her I heard clearly recommending something very much like that at
Apimondia when she said every beekeeper should try to maintain at least one
yard without any treatment whatsoever, in order to observe and select.
Frankly, given the management and observation skills of the average
beekeeper (and bee haver?) the idea struck many of us as hair-brained and
Aaron queried her at some length publicly.

> What they *do say* is to try to develop Hygienic Lines.
> This is done by inserting frozen brood into the brood nest and breeding
> from colonies which clean out dead brood quickly. This requires no
diseased
> hives

Many years back, from time-to-time in his magazine articles, and before he
went to Europe for a while, Steve Taber, it seems to me, was advocating that
beekeepers and breeders challenge bees with AFB.  Later he moved to
recommending using freezer killed brood, which made the whole idea more
palatable to beekeepers. One of the things that slowed the acceptance of
selecting for HYG twenty years ago and more was that it seemed to require
inserting AFB into hives.  The current use of surrogate tests has made the
idea an easier sell.  It also seems to me that I did read an article quite
some long time back, when the whole idea of HYG was not so well accepted in
which Steve did say that he was not concerned about AFB in in his outfit and
even considered it a good thing when selecting.

As far as personal experience is concerned, as a bee inspector, I have seen
bees that seem totally immune to AFB.  In one memorable case, cited here
before, every hive in the yard of 40 or so was broken down and full, of
scale with the exception of 3 or so.  These latter bees were robbing the AFB
deadouts and thriving without showing any active disease. I was amazed.

Moreover, recently, I had a chance to observe Lusby's operation.  They use
no treatments at all for mites or brood diseases.  Over a two day period in
seven yards, we opened 100 hives or so at random, and inspected 30 or so
closely.  On one frame in one hive, we found one cell of AFB.  The other
cappings on the frame were slightly discolored, and there were several other
cells with dead larvae that had suffered chalk or some other problem, but
the bees seemed to have the AFB under control.  Dee said she and Ed argue
about whether to pull that frame or just to let the bees handle it.  We just
left the frame, marked the hive, and moved on.  (Note: Don't try this at
home, kids.  This will not work for most other beekeepers.  Lusbys have
unusual bee stock, considerable expertise and insight, a unique management
system, and an unique environment).

In my own experience, when we still had AFB, we decided one year to move any
AFB into a nurse yard and attempt to clear them up with OTC.  We moved about
10 in from various yards and, I think gave them one dusting.  As often
happens, we did not get back for a while -- several weeks and when we did
there was no sign whatsoever of any AFB.  Did moving make the difference,
the OTC, a honey flow?  I often wonder, since even three dustings will
sometimes not clean up AFB.

> Long-term control strategy needs to include AFB-resistant bee stocks that
> are widely available to all beekeepers. The most likely stock will come
> from a hygienic-behavior breeding program. Furthermore, beekeepers should
> be encouraged to inspect the health of the brood in their own colonies at
> least once per year. Heavily AFB-infested colonies or those that fail to
> respond to chemical treatments should be destroyed. "

That's good advice.

allen
http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/