On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 12:44 AM, allen  wrote:

>
> Show me your 10,000+ plus hive operations travelling thousands of miles
> and I will begin to consider the UK as a beekeeping model for the rest
> of the world.
>

In New Zealand there are several thousand hive operations that do manage to
keep AFB to below 1% without antibiotic use.  I was pulling honey with one
and they were very vigilant.  There were two crews loading one truck at a
time.  But each crew loaded its own pallet on the truck and it was the
responsibility of the person carrying the boxes to keep track of which hive
they came from.  After the supers were blown the person blowing would
always check one or two frames from the brood box.

One thing not mentioned in this discussion  is the practical considerations
of a commercial beekeeper regarding dealing with a hive found with AFB in
the daytime.  You are not likely to go back to the yard (it could be a long
distance away).  If the hive is weak it can't be left because it is going
to get robbed.  So we dust the hives on either side of it (I personally
will judiciously use antibiotics, just not in feed to all the hives).  Then
we close up the hive and take it away and burn the frames, or maybe just
the brood frames.  Some bees left are going to drift in with the other
hives which is why we treat them.

But if the hive is strong then we shake the bees onto foundation and take
the boxes away. This prevents the bees from drifting in the adjacent hives
and is very effective in my experience in cleaning up the problem if the
hive is strong enough and it is early enough in the season.

Stan

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