There appear to be two contrasting philosophies/views in the world regarding bee maladies (and more broadly in human and veterinary medicine, pest management).  One views the detection of a malicious entity in its potential host as imminent and serious danger.  The other one is more relaxed about the detection knowing that there are ways that the host can deal with the malady, or that it can be managed through various stewardship approaches.

For viruses and bacteria in bees, they appear to be detectable almost everywhere, anytime given current needle in the haystack technologies, but at those levels they stay latent or very low unless things precipitate.  For AFB it is pretty clear that it only rages in colonies after exposure to some concentrated source of spores, either accumulated in the comb, or brought in from robbing equally high infected sources.

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