On Wed, 6 Mar 1996, Jean-Marie Van Dyck wrote: > ... > Pay attention that there is a reverse at the medal (in french it means > the worst side) : if you get bees really resistant to chalkbrood > you'll get bees really sensible to AFB : we saw this with our Buckfast > bees which got AFB in an area quite without AFB (one case for 2-3 > years)...! > ... Hallo Jean-Marie, how often do you practice renewal of combs? Brother Adam emphasizes in his book "Breeding of Honeybee" the necessity of regular renewal at least all 4 years as supporting measure against all diseases, especially against AFB. In his book on bee management he describes two ways of doing it according to the yield of the region in which one lives. I have made good experience with it. Every year at the end of yield in July I put a quarter of my 50+ Buckfast colonies completely on new wax walls (?). Until now I never lost more than 10% of my colonies during winter, mostly less, for instance because of Nosema. And this I am regarding as natural selection. Up to now there hasn't been any AFB though there were infected hives in the environment. (Admittedly, when we claim such important things we say always "toi", "toi", "toi" and knock on wood thrice). Regards, R.E.Bahr NISI APES FINIS