There are good field tests available to confirm AFB: the venerable Holt's Milk Test and the newer Veto test kits available from many bee suppliers.  Both will settle the issue of whether you're dealing with AFB better than observations of "a few cells which show signs of AFB". You can always send the frame in question to Beltsville.

That strikes me as the first step: confirming whether or not this is actually AFB.

While you are working this out I would recommend implementing high-level quarantine and infection-control strategies in your yard: no exchange of frames or equipment, separate gloves and tools for each colony. No wax discarded on the ground. Robbing screens on every colony and effective anti-swarming tactics on the possibly-infected colony, etc.  

There is a big difference between a hive in "remission", i.e. currently exhibiting no active signs of AFB and a hive that has developed "resistance", or some kind of biological mechanism by which it can co-exist successfully with AFB.

Remission (especially with treatment) may be possible.  But it does not follow that remission, even without treatment, would somehow evolve into "resistance".  And the risk of a single infected colony, with or without symptoms, infecting other colonies is high because of bees moving from one colony to another (on their own volition as in robbing or by beekeepers moving frames of brood, queens, etc.) and because beekeepers move equipment around all the time.  

AFB has a famously long-lived (many decades long) ability to remain infectious in honey and on equipment. It can be effectively killed by gamma irradiation at the 10 KGy level.

I had EFB in my yard last year, and I can tell you that the extra effort of working around colonies and preventing cross-contamination to my healthy hives increased the work of beekeeping enormously. I also treated all the colonies in my yard, not just the sick ones.  I was determined not to euthanize any colonies (and was not required to do so by state law since this wasn't AFB). I lost some colonies despite my considerable efforts. I spent a ton of money on fresh equipment and it was a very stressful period for me. It really took the fun out of beekeeping for me at the time. Knowing what I know now about it, if it was a single colony I think I would consider just culling it.

Nancy Wicker

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