I said the same as Randy until about 5 years ago.  The first appearance of antibiotic resistant AFB got lots of reports from our commercial guys about AFB, then that talk disappeared - why?  Well it seems most decided to burn, and in a couple of years, the problem more or less disappeared.  That speaks to Randy's sanitation solution.


BUT, in last few years, with lots of hobby beekeepers in the valley, when we have drought  years (severe 3 out  of last 5) and the stress of heavy smoke, we saw very aggressive robbing (our colonies are nutritionally in good shape), but I suspect those of the neighbors aren't.  We've had to go to shutting down entrances mid-summer due to such heavy robbing pressure.  THAT activity has always been followed by finding an occasional AFB colony among our own colonies


Also, in desperation for bees for a late season experiment three years ago, I supplemented the packages I could get with 8 nucs, 3 of which in two weeks displayed AFB.  Fortunately, I was able to get 5 healthy nuc to adequate size for the experiment (we lost 1 degree of freedom).  Thus, I violated my  own rule - NEVER bring in someone else's equipment - the odds of adding new pest and disease problems is too high.






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