Dear Mr. Imirie,
 
I hardly could believe what I read. There are some beekeepers in USA
that practise beekeeping in such a reasonable way (in my mind). Surely
it is easier to grab some drugs out of the medicine cabinet to treat the
bees. But I personally and more and more consumers of bee products don't
want that kind of beekeeping.
 
Your way of beekeeping works and it does also in other parts of the
world. Here in Germany we use quite similar methods of handling AFB. By
the way a little difference: we sometimes make artifical swarms with
clean chambers and wax foundations, if one has a only a few hives with
beginning AFB or a hive of excellent breed. But this is rearly an
exception mostly the hives are burned just as you do. Perhaps it is more
than pure coincidence - we predominantly have Carniolan bees, too.
 
Sincerely
 
Reimund
Beekeeper in Germany (Bavaria)
Queen Rearing of Carniolan Bees
Insemination Station
 
> Now in my 65th year with bees, I recall the days of using boiling lye
> solutions, scorching hive bodies and bottom boards with gasoline blow torches
> and using sulfur drugs to HOPEFULLY clean up AFB spores.
> Have you ever seen a person burned by lye, burned by a gasoline blow torch, or
> burned by HOT wax?  I have!  Best that you "play politics" and get your state
> to fund an ethylene oxide fumigation chamber like Maryland and North Carolina.
> Although many beekeepers use Terramycin for AFB, unfortunately, many
> beekeepers think that treatment with TM or Extender Patties KILLS American
> Foul Brood spores. IT DOES NOT!  It only controls AFB, just like shots of
> insulin controls diabetes, but does not kill or cure diabetes.
> In my 65 years, always having 20-100+ colonies (a scientific hobby only), I
> have never used any Terramycin, because I do not want the presence of AFB
> sores HIDDEN.  If hidden, not knowing I have AFB in my apiary, It can be
> quickly spread to every colony and my other apiaries by contaminated tools,
> hive parts, and HONEY.
> TOTAL BURNING of bees, hives, frames, wax, brood, pollen, EVERYTHING is the
> BEST solution and CHEAPEST in the lung run unless you have access to ethylene
> oxide fumigation or gamma ray irradiation.
> Since my bees are in the early crop area of Maryland & Virginia, I have had
> Carniolans for almost 50 years.
> Wishing a great 1998 to you and your bees, I am George Imirie