> otherwise I would be concerned that you are covering up an AFB problem.

What is an AFB problem?

As with many bee topics, this is a contentious subject.

My experience proves (to me at least), that if you never have an AFB 
breakdown, you don't have an AFB problem, but if you do have a 
breakdown, you do.

Applying OTC proactively and properly can prevent a breakdown, and if it 
does for a sufficiently long time, the chances of an occurrence diminish 
greatly with time.  Any breakdown resets the clock back to zero.

There are many different circumstances that beekeepers may face.  In 
some locales, AFB may be in the environment sufficiently that untreated 
colonies break down.  In others, there is little risk except from 
reservoirs of disease within the hives themselves.

In either case, appropriate treatment can prevent breakdown as long as 
it is continued and done properly.

It seems to me that most of today's bees are far more resistant to AFB 
than in decades past, and if one is sure of the quality of one's stock, 
and is prepared to inspect hives regularly and scrupulously and destroy 
any AFB found, then such treatments can be avoided.

However, there are many reasons that beekeepers can't or won't do that 
and therefore treatment may be the best way they can forestall AFB problems.

There are many good reasons not to want to treat with antibiotics, but 
there are just as many good reasons to do so if the need is indicated.

This a perennial topic of contention and let's not get it going again. 
Anyone with a wish for self-punishment can indulge in an archive search 
at http://www.bee-l.org to read all sides of the debate, replete with 
lots of false assumptions, non-sequiturs, straw men and the usual 
barrage of rhetoric facing down sparse facts, some experience and a 
little empirical evidence.

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