Now in my 65th year with bees, I recall the days of using boiling lye
solutions, scorching hive bodies and bottom boards with gasoline blow torches
and using sulfur drugs to HOPEFULLY clean up AFB spores.
Have you ever seen a person burned by lye, burned by a gasoline blow torch, or
burned by HOT wax?  I have!  Best that you "play politics" and get your state
to fund an ethylene oxide fumigation chamber like Maryland and North Carolina.
Although many beekeepers use Terramycin for AFB, unfortunately, many
beekeepers think that treatment with TM or Extender Patties KILLS American
Foul Brood spores. IT DOES NOT!  It only controls AFB, just like shots of
insulin controls diabetes, but does not kill or cure diabetes.
In my 65 years, always having 20-100+ colonies (a scientific hobby only), I
have never used any Terramycin, because I do not want the presence of AFB
sores HIDDEN.  If hidden, not knowing I have AFB in my apiary, It can be
quickly spread to every colony and my other apiaries by contaminated tools,
hive parts, and HONEY.
TOTAL BURNING of bees, hives, frames, wax, brood, pollen, EVERYTHING is the
BEST solution and CHEAPEST in the lung run unless you have access to ethylene
oxide fumigation or gamma ray irradiation.
Since my bees are in the early crop area of Maryland & Virginia, I have had
Carniolans for almost 50 years.
Wishing a great 1998 to you and your bees, I am George Imirie