I received this note off-list:
> AFB spores are not produced until AFTER the vegetative state...not before, as you stated.  Starting with that, your discussion more or less falls apart.

To which I replied
I thought that's what I said. Was I unclear? It's just like a tree with nuts. You can start a few plants with some seeds, but you won't get them by the bushel if the tree is stomped down before it bears.  

The correspondent continued
> I know for a fact that if prophylactic use of TM (and Tylosin) was stopped in [state redacted] that there would be fewer than 3 beekeepers left of those with more than 1,000 hives and very few of those with more than 200-300.

Right, I think we agree completely on this topic. But there are two types of scenarios, one where bees bring home a few thousand spores with honey they robbed from AFB hives and the other where the guy has billions of spores throughout the outfit. That guy can never stop using meds. I used to have an outfit like that, which I bought. We'd get about ten a year, running 500 colonies. That's even with giving TM spring and fall. I suppose if I dosed years round the symptoms would have gone away but I had pollen traps on all the hives, so I didn't dose while I was collecting pollen. 

The first scenario is different. Like I said, the bees bring the spores in and they are fed to the larvae. These spores hatch, and the vegetative stage begins. But at this point the TM kills the bacteria so they never reproduce or produce more spores. Soon most of the spores have either hatched or gotten removed in the bees' shit. So a few well timed doses can prevent the breakdown of a hive exposed to AFB by robbing. That's all I was talking about in this case. 

Pete

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