Mark,

>>I would think that we aught to be able to certify the health of the parent colonies and the other colonies of the seller of nucs.

This would go a long way towards giving the buyer some peace of mind.  The brood frames placed into nucs are typically augmented with frames from storage.  Hopefully, these are not infested with AFB spores...  If the seller has had a clean bill of health for 3 years and does not use TM or such, then there is high probability that the nucs don't have strong AFB potential. :)

>>If you are putting your newly purchased nuc into new equipment then in all likelyhood you did buy your first case of AFB.

When I inspected the nuc with the selling beekeeper - really a nice person and well respected in the bee club - I saw brown liquid in some cells and the smell was not like my original colony.  This was my second year with bees and I had heard of foulbrood but had not seen it!  Now I know what I saw and will not make the same mistake again.

>>In the future try to get an agreement with your supplier to
the effect that if your colony comes down with AFB in the first season there should be some refund coming your way.

The supplier did offer to replace the bees (to give me another nuc) but I declined for two reasons: 1) I still had to deal with the ABF I already purchased, and 2) how would I know the next nuc did not have AFB (spores)??  I will not buy from this beekeeper again.

>>You can know your supplier very well and things happen when least expected.

Sure.  I myself would never sell a problem to a novice or an experienced beekeeper but some other folks don't have the same integrity.  It does not matter - IMHO, novices should be advised not to start out with purchased nucs because of potential risks they are not trained to recognize and deal with.  I assume most nuc sellers have safe nucs but quite a few don't.

>>The work that we do and the data we collect is supposed to be confidential.  Therefore we can't publish such a list.

I know but I think this cloak of confidentiality lets folks with AFB make splits and sell nucs.  They often use TM to mask AFB.  How often the inspector is not able to verify the infected colony was burned indeed?

What is the useful purpose of collecting data if it does not get out there to steer, particularly, new beekeepers clear of potential problems?  It's interesting to know if one county has more AFB than another one but it has little practical benefit to beekeepers interested in buying nucs from a clean source.

I think AFB statistics on registered apiaries, including my own. :), should be in the public domain.

My 2 cents,

Waldemar

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