# AFB-how does the foundation supplier kill the spores



## Kidbeeyoz (May 8, 2013)

Knowing that the minimum temperature required to kill AFB is somewhere in the vicinity of 120 degrees centigrade, what treatment does the foundation maker put the wax through to kill the spores? Can you quote me some scientific studies if possible.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

As far as I've been able to find out there is no effort to kill the spores in the wax used for foundation. The spores are encased in wax and that seems to be sufficient to prevent them doing harm. If anyone knows more I'd love to hear it. Of course you COULD heat beeswax to 120 C with steam and still not have it reach flash point or get too terribly hot. Does anyone know if this is done? Most of the literature I can find is pretty old.

Here is an extract from Gleanings in Bee Culture Volume 50 pg 781:
"American Foul Brood in Comb Foundation. Question: Can American foul brood be transmitted in comb foundation made from wax obtained by rendering diseased combs? I have one colony which contracted American foul brood in combs built from foundation this year. While no diseases can be found in old combs in the same hive. Aurthur P. Suaer, Indiana. Answer: Apparently American foul brood is never transmitted in this way. In many cases, combs from diseased colonies have been rendered and wax used in making foundation which was given to the bees immediately without any evidence of disease ever being transmitted in this way. Foundation has been shipped for years to Porto Rico and other regions where no American foul brood exists, without the development of the disease there. In your case no doubt the disease was carried in from a diseased colony in the neighborhood. The fact that it appeared first on a comb recently drawn from foundation means simply that the infection happened to be fed to larvae in that comb first instead of in one of the old combs."

This document:
http://www.oie.int/fileadmin/Home/fr/Health_standards/tahm/2.02.02_AMERICAN_FOULBROOD.pdf

on the contrary, says: " Wax contaminated with the spores of P. larvae, used in the production of comb foundations, can also spread the disease if not properly treated (120°C for 30 minutes at 1 bar)."

https://books.google.com/books?id=d...q=making foundation heating foulbrood&f=false

"According to the testimony of two prominent foundation makers, the wax during the refining and purifying process reaches a temperature of quite or nearly 100°C for a short time. During the sheeting, however it does not reach a temperature much above the melting point , say 79°C. Two other foundation makers, Dadant & Hunt (41), state that in refining, the wax is heated for some time to 100°C, and is kept liquid for 24 hours; so McKenzie thinks that if these temperatures are reached in making, there is little danger of foul brood from comb foundation, as the specific gravity of bacteria in the melted wax is so great that throughout the process of manufacture the bacteria tend to fall to the bottom. Sternberg (42) states that the spores require for their destruction temperature of 100°C for four minutes (determined in `1887); but there is no statement as to the age of the spores."-- Foul brood of bees by F.C. Harrison pg 13

Here is a previous discussion on Beesource:
http://www.beesource.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-200375.html


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## johnbeejohn (Jun 30, 2013)

haha this is crazy just thinking the same thng this morning when i woke up !! strange.....


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

If it were an issue, radiation can be used to kill the spores....but once encapsulated in wax there doesn't seem to be an issue.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

I thought afb and efb you were supposed to burn the whole thing?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I thought afb and efb you were supposed to burn the whole thing?

EFB? No. AFB? Yes. But that is an infection. The point is that people sell wax and that wax may have AFB spores in it and that wax with spores will be used to make foundation. Should they have burned the hive with the infested wax? Of course. But what if they didn't bother to notice? Or they don't care?


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

...or they use antibiotics routinely and have no idea they have a suppressed infection.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>...or they use antibiotics routinely and have no idea they have a suppressed infection.

That is actually the most likely scenario...


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## beeware10 (Jul 25, 2010)

when foundation started being made there were no antibiotics so that is not a factor. If it was possible to infect from fdn it would have shown up years ago when there was much more afb. anyone showing afb will have to blame something else rather than fdn. from my experience most problems are beekeeper related.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

New Zealand has an agency dedicated to _AFB Management_.

Here is what they say about this issue ...


> At least some of the wax that is melted down for foundation must come from AFB infected colonies, and it is known that cappings wax taken directly from AFB colonies can contain large numbers of spores (up to 9 million/gm). However, most of the AFB spores are removed by the initial melting and later processing of wax into foundation.
> 
> Tests have been carried out on eight lines of foundation produced in New Zealand and no AFB spores were found. Foundation is probably therefore no more than a very minor source of cross-infection.
> 
> ...


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

Thanks Rader.


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## Riskybizz (Mar 12, 2010)

good job there Rader....look for a little something extra in the paycheck this week ok...


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## mountainbeek (Oct 5, 2013)

I am not interested in derailing this thread, but what about creating a nano-carbon filter? Or perhaps just filtering the wax through something similar that filters particles or items the same size as a American Foul brood spore?


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

I quit salvaging wax from frames a long time ago when I decided the $20 dollar checks just weren't making it worthwhile, besides they make such a pretty fire.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

mountainbeek said:


> I am not interested in derailing this thread, but what about creating a nano-carbon filter? Or perhaps just filtering the wax through something similar that filters particles or items the same size as a American Foul brood spore?


No need to. When wax is rendered the AFB spores being the weight they are will be at the bottom of the wax that usually gets scraped off and tossed.

 I wish that were true, but I doubt that it is. Wax is not an infection source when it comes to AFB for the reasons Michael Bush stated early on in this Thread.

Don't Worry, Bee Happy


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

I am far more concerned about chemicals put in hives and then the wax rendered into foundation then the few spores that get encased in wax. Most likely there are more spores in your healthy hive that are not encased in wax to begin with. Foundation is a relatively low amount of wax in a drawn comb.


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

The premise of the original question is wrong. As in most sterilization, temperature and time are interrelated. G. F. White authored the USDA pamphlet on American Foulbrood in the 1920 == now available as a free ebook download via Google. 

White published tables that show 60 minutes as 95C is sufficient for complete sterilization in water suspension. Standard auto-clave minimum setting in 121 C at 20 minutes == and this setting for moist autoclave heat is likely the source of the "minimum temp" cite that forms the basis of the question. White also showed incomplete sterilization at 93 C.

Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=EjVCAQAAMAAJ

A 1972 paper by W. Dobbelaere, *Disinfection of wooden structures contaminated with Paenibacillus larvae subsp. larvae spores*,
indicates a parafin suspension has no colony forming units when innoculated with a standard disease dilution. The paper describes the preparation of the standard test dilution of the disease, and this preparation has a "heat shock" of 10 minutes at 80 C. I assume a heat shock induces spore germination, and a wax melt may be sterile on account of failed growth as well as direct spore death. 

Source: https://s3.amazonaws.com/objects.re..._al-2001-Journal_of_Applied_Microbiology.pdf"


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Hmmm, you should understand that sterilization is a process never to be guaranteed. You can say that something has been sterilized but you can't guarantee it is sterile.


> free from bacteria or other living microorganisms; totally clean.


 No one in the medical industry will claim their device is sterile. That is a lawsuit in the making.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

Hmmm ...

Ordinary 'band aids' ...







photo credit

What does it say in bottom left corner of the box? ... _sterile_ ...


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Rader, when they use that term "sterile" they mean it has been sterilized. Show me where they will guarantee that it is sterile. There is a huge difference between marketing "sterile" and what a scientist considers sterile. The FDA considers something sterile if a protocol has been written and the test show nothing is living if the protocol has been followed.
In no way does the FDA believe a product that they approve cannot be sterile. That is something that is impossible to predict. Sorry to inform you but if you go into a hospital for a procedure and believe that the operating room is sterile it is noting by blind faith. No where in the world can anyone guarantee sterility in the operating room.

Certainly since the 16 century there has been many improvements. So the next time you put a sterile band aide on your cut put some antibiotic on it just in case.

Fyi we made band aids for Curad so I was right next to the machine.


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## bdouglas (Dec 18, 2014)

Acebird said:


> No one in the medical industry will claim their device is sterile.


How did you determine that???????????????


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## JDMoodie (Aug 30, 2014)

I don't make my own foundation (don't plan on using foundation anyway) but one of my suppliers will make foundation using my wax to put in nucs that I purchase or just to produce foundation for me. One way to get around the potential... although I subscribe to the "hot over time" theory rather than the "peak temperature" required but have no experience in the matter.

Jeff.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Typically the way it works is the higher the temp the shorter the time. Of course the temperature must be hot enough to have an effect or the time becomes infinity.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

Ace, in post #18, you show a quote that says:



> free from bacteria or other living microorganisms; totally clean.


yet you give no reference to who said it. I'd like to know where it came from.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

bdouglas said:


> How did you determine that???????????????


Working in the device manufacture of medical products. Knowing that packaging can get compromised and usually the device can not be tested for sterility without destroying it or it's packaging.

Product is made normally in large quantities and put in a sealed package. You cannot test the seal without destroying the package. Boxes are placed on a pallet in a specific pattern and usually blister wrapped. Then shipped to a sterilizing company and they go through a set protocol that was previously tested out on several runs of product. 
The product is then returned to the company and put in inventory. At any point in the shipping, handling and use of the product the sterility could be compromised. Many times it is something simple like a sharp protrusion of the product poking a hole in the package during shipping. The corner of one pouch could poke a hole in the pouch of another. The only chance of catching this problem is a very observant user of the product. And in a hospital setting these people are way overworked so not much of a chance unless it is really obvious.

So product can run through a sterilization process but no one can guarantee each individual piece is sterile at time of use. Everyone in the medical field should know what the label "sterile" on a package means and inspect it before use for evidence of compromise.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Barry said:


> I'd like to know where it came from.


Barry I was looking for a dictionary meaning of "sterile"

Just plug "sterile" into google search and it will come right up.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

So how does "guaranteed sterilization" relate to this thread?


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Food for thought I guess.
In the previous post to mine, JWchestnut gave reference to sterilization processes and the word sterile. I think many people do not understand the difference. To me sterilizing wax as a control for AFB is silly because no sooner than taking the wax out of the sterilization process does it now become not sterile and in use it will most likely have as many or more live spores on the surface then it does encased in the wax.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

>> To me sterilizing wax as a control for AFB is silly because no sooner than taking the wax out of the sterilization process does it now become not sterile ...

Doesn't that happen to band-aids too? :scratch: 
That doesn't mean that it was pointless to _start_ with a sterile product - bandaid or _beeswax_.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

Acebird said:


> To me sterilizing wax as a control for AFB is silly because no sooner than taking the wax out of the sterilization process does it now become not sterile and in use it will most likely have as many or more live spores on the surface then it does encased in the wax.


Do you want to rephrase this? Or can you give sound data to show sterilized wax will "most likely have as many or more live [AFB] spores on the surface then it does encased in the wax."


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Doesn't that happen to band-aids too?


You are hoping it doesn't. That is the reason for the sealed pouch. When you break the sealed pouch for use you apply a dab of antibiotic gel. This give the body time to heal sealing out germs from entering the open wound. If the seal has been broken previous to use then it is no different than using a paper towel and duct tape.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

But we're talking about wax and AFB. Stick to the topic.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Barry said:


> Do you want to rephrase this?


Yes, what I said was wrong. Wax that was sterilized will not have live spores encased in it. It will get spores on the surface of the wax like it did before. The encased spores will be dead and if they weren't it wouldn't matter, they are encased. It is only the spores on the surface that can infect brood and they have to eat it. The exposure is so small it would never cause an infection. Some time down the road, 5,10,15 years in the hive the comb might accumulate enough spores but it won't be because of the spores that were in the foundation to begin with. It has to be brought in from another hive that had an infection either by robbing honey or the bees themselves, like from a package or nuc.


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## dsegrest (May 15, 2014)

Michael Bush said:


> >I thought afb and efb you were supposed to burn the whole thing?
> 
> EFB? No. AFB? Yes. But that is an infection. The point is that people sell wax and that wax may have AFB spores in it and that wax with spores will be used to make foundation. Should they have burned the hive with the infested wax? Of course. But what if they didn't bother to notice? Or they don't care?


I read somewhere that AFB spores are in practically every apiary in the country. They just don't always manifest themselves.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

There is an interesting study from Sweden (Tobias Olfson and Alejandra Vazquez) where they sampled some hives every week.

In one case, they saw (through analzying the samples) a bloom of panabacillus larvae larvae (the bacterium that causes AFB), but after some time (and after the flow changed from one source to another, which may or may not be relevant), the bloom subsided....all happening without any 'clinical signs' in the hive (ie, nothing that the beekeeper would be able to recognize as AFB).


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

deknow said:


> the bloom subsided....all happening without any 'clinical signs' in the hive


Would that happen with a drop back in brood rearing that coincided with a change in floral source? How did they collect the samples?


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

> Infection with Paenibacillus larvae During spring of the second year, we noted that larvae in the small beehive became infected with the pathogenous P. larvae, which were also detected in house bees, honey stomach, and fresh honey (Fig. 2 and cluster II in Fig. 3). Because no clinical symptoms typical of this larval disease were recorded, the beehive was employed continuously throughout the study. The numbers of P. larvae continued to increase with gathering of the oil-seed rape and wild raspberry nectars, but this increase ceased with gathering of the linden nectar (Fig. 2). At this point, the numbers of P. larvae began decreasing from 8,000,000 CFU/larva (Fig. 2) and vanished 3 weeks later without AFB developing.


http://www.researchgate.net/publica..._Honey_Stomach_of_the_Honeybee_Apis_mellifera


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Acebird said:


> Would that happen with a drop back in brood rearing that coincided with a change in floral source? How did they collect the samples?


All of that would be speculation. I don't think it is in the mainstream belief system (even among researchers) that AFB can bloom and subside without clinical symptoms.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

> and vanished 3 weeks later without AFB developing


Is it possible there is a natural antibiotic in the floral source (something that would attack the spores)? Something in the bees immune system that is triggered by the new floral source?


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Acebird-

If foundation has spores on it as soon as it is made, and a band-aid has bacteria on it as soon as it is removed from it's package, why do you suggest intervention with an antibiotic for the band-aid and not the foundation?

Crazy Roland


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Roland said:


> Acebird-
> 
> If foundation has spores on it as soon as it is made, and a band-aid has bacteria on it as soon as it is removed from it's package, why do you suggest intervention with an antibiotic for the band-aid and not the foundation?
> 
> Crazy Roland


That is an excellent question Roland.

In the first case we are talking about a wound. A wound is damage to the skin which is the first line of defense for controlling disease in animals, it's primary protective layer. In the process of getting a wound germs are driven in under the skin. The antibiotic kills some of these germs and the gel is a temporary barrier to prevent more from getting in. The result is much faster healing no matter who it is applied on.
In the case of the foundation there is no wound or sickness of any kind. You can think of them as the millions of germs that are on your skin. No problem what so ever with that. In reality the problem comes when you try to sanitize the skin for no reason. Then you get cracks that lets germs in. Germaphobes are always sick. With bees it is even more difficult to treat because you cannot treat just the sick you have to treat the whole hive. Just like treating for cancer you have to kill all the cells not just the bad ones and hope the good ones come back stronger than the bad ones. If you could target just the sick brood and not treat the rest of the hive you would have an acceptable treatment for AFB.


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

Acebird said:


> Fyi we made band aids for Curad so I was right next to the machine.


Our bandaids have been Acebirded! :ws:


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

Acebird said:


> If you could target just the sick brood and not treat the rest of the hive you would have an acceptable treatment for AFB.


The AFB treatment breakthrough!

Please don't explain.


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## D Coates (Jan 6, 2006)

clyderoad said:


> The AFB treatment breakthrough!
> 
> Please explain.


Ohhhh... You're a glutton for useless punishment clyderoad! 

So thankful for the member specific block feature on Beesource to avoid the questions response...


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

You are right. I don't know what I was thinking.
I'll edit my post.
Thanks


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

deknow said:


> There is an interesting study from Sweden (Tobias Olfson and Alejandra Vazquez) where they sampled some hives every week.
> 
> In one case, they saw (through analzying the samples) a bloom of panabacillus larvae larvae (the bacterium that causes AFB), but after some time (and after the flow changed from one source to another, which may or may not be relevant), the bloom subsided....all happening without any 'clinical signs' in the hive (ie, nothing that the beekeeper would be able to recognize as AFB).


"through analyzing the samples". I assume "the samples" were samples of Honey, taken from each hive?


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Mark, you don't think they were sampling brood? Wouldn't it take some time for the honey to get laced with spores.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I would not think that there would be anything to find if the brood were not infected. And if it was infected then what needs sampling would be obvious. And I don't know how they would sample all of the hives unless they all had observable active AFB infection. So that's why I asked what I did.

What were they sampling, Dean?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

deknow said:


> In one case, they saw (through analzying the samples) a bloom of panabacillus larvae larvae (the bacterium that causes AFB), but after some time (and after the flow changed from one source to another, which may or may not be relevant), the bloom subsided....all happening without any 'clinical signs' in the hive (ie, nothing that the beekeeper would be able to recognize as AFB).


Brian, what leads me to suspect that they sampled honey and not brood is that they mentioned "after the flow changed from one source to another" ... "the bloom subsided". The bloom being the panabacillus larvae larvae(the bacterium which causes AFB).

It also mentions "without and 'clinical signs' in the hive". THAT would be from looking at the brood, the capped brood. There were no visible signs of AFB.

Go to any grocery store and buy a sample of each kind of honey on the shelf and you will find AFB spores in some of those samples.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

I wasn't going to reply. But I am man enough to admit when Acebird is right. Just checked our bandages.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

sqkcrk said:


> It also mentions "without and 'clinical signs' in the hive". THAT would be from looking at the brood, the capped brood. There were no visible signs of AFB.


If there are no clinical signs then I would want to know the spore count of the brood not the honey.



> Go to any grocery store and buy a sample of each kind of honey on the shelf and you will find AFB spores in some of those samples.


You are probably right but the level in the brood would tell you how much they can stand before an infection occurs. The spore count in the honey has got to increase with time. Or are you saying the spores are in the nectar when the bees bring it in? Then every hive would be doomed. I think if they were measuring the spores in the honey you can't draw any conclusions. They could have just robbed a hive and got high counts and then just gone to nectar and got low counts.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

It may well be that the wooden ware or the comb surface was swabbed in some way to see if AFB spores could be detected. I don't know. I would like to know what method of sampling was done in the test that deknow sited.

Brian, how would you sample the brood? The spore count in the digestive tract of larval stage honey bees is quite well established and known. Perhaps those who sampled these hives did sample brood. But I have no idea how they would go about doing that beyond imagination. That is no good to me when someone who knows could tell us.

When a colony of honey bees is infected with AFB the easiest way for another colony of honey bees to also become infected is for the second colony to rob the first or for a beekeeper to move combs, extracted or not, from the infected hive into the other. The spores are in the honey and when ingested by nurse bees and then fed to brood as brood food that regenerates the disease.

Other than when brood comb with active stage AFB is transferred into an otherwise healthy hive, the transferring of brood combs is not considered to be significant on the list of the ways a colony of bees gets AFB.

"after the flow changed from one source to another" ... "the bloom subsided". The bloom being the panabacillus larvae larvae(the bacterium which causes AFB)."

A statement like that indicates to me that a certain level of AFB spores were present in honey sampled from the hive and then after or during an active nectar flow the spore count become more dilute, fewer spores per volume of honey.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

> Materials and MethodsHoneybeesBees were obtained in an apiary in the village of Jonstorpin southern Sweden from colonies maintained using stan-dard beekeeping practices. Bacterial samplings of thehoneybees (bred according to the Buckfast method), of thelarvae, of flowers available to the honeybees, and of vari-ous types of fresh and stored honey were carried out duringthe 2-year period. Fresh honey was defined as not fullyripened 1- to 3-day old honey taken from cells that werenot yet sealed with wax. The beehives were always emp-tied of their honey before the experiments were begun. Toidentify the bacteria involved and to acquire completebacterial flora, 16S rRNA gene analysis was performed onall of the bacteria using both cloning and pure-culturetechniques during the first year and using pure-culturetechnique alone the second year of the study


Looks like they sampled everything.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Interesting.


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