Bill wrote:

"I was taking with an expert and he made the same observations as Peter
[Dillon].
"When inspecting a yard he found EFB but knew that the yard had
experienced AFB in the past. AFB was not obviously present. EFB was.
Beltsville had to determine what was actually present and did find that
the EFB was "masking" the AFB."

It would be interesting to have more details of how EFB can mask AFB.  All
the literature (that I have seen) suggests that the causative organism of
AFB (PLL) suppresses all other bacteria, i.e. when AFB is present then only
PLL will be found, unlike EFB where there may be secondary invaders.

Of course, your use of antibiotics may make the situation different from
ours - if we had AFB then the comb would have been burnt.

Peter Edwards
[log in to unmask]
www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/

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