I have a rather urgent issue that needs your scientific and practical advice. Here in Fiji, we have had AFB for at least 25 years, and probably much longer. However, the government Department of Agriculture's practice is to burn any hive that has proven to have AFB spores as identified in a laboratory, EVEN IF THE HIVE APPEARS HEALTHY. Does this government policy make good sense? If not, I'd really appreciate some supporting documentation that this practice is unncessarily wasteful. What is a better governmental or beekeeper policy? My personal, unscientific, belief is that all colonies have a low level of spores, but the disease only becomes problemic under certain conditions. I have no documentation on this so my position is weak. Sincerely, John Caldeira Beekeeping Trainer PO Box 224, Rakiraki, Ra, Fiji Islands (country code 679) 907-1247 [log in to unmask] http://www.outdoorplace.org/ *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm