In Fiji, the only way we are allowed to deal with AFB is to burn the bees and the equipment. Just as George Imirie suggests below. – JL
Surely, you have heard about the “dreaded” disease of AMERICAN FOUL BROOD. What can you do about it? Thousands of people will tell you to treat with TERRAMYCIN, and I am going to tell you they are WRONG!
Let me explain. DOES TERRAMYCIN KILL AFB? It has always been a mystery to me, that bee inspectors, and particularly commercial honey producers will never come right out and say N0; but they “beat around the bush” and say, it controls the spread of AFB so the bees stay alive, can produce honey, and many beekeepers use Terramycin.
They never mention that Terramycin just HIDES the symptoms of AFB, and hence ALL of your wooden ware in your apiary, your hive tool, gloves, bee suit, honey house, and PARTICULARLY ALL YOUR HONEY is infected with AFB and the bees will die if you ever stop using Terramycin.
The only way that you can sterilize your wooden ware is by ETO (ethylene oxide, JL) fumigation in Maryland only, radiation, or boiling in lye.
TERRAMYCIN will control the vegetative state of bacillus larvae but will NOT kill the devilish spores that can stay alive as long as 80 years that we know. I don’t know why the officials are reluctant to tell you what 1 just said, but they are. ASK THEM!
I have never used Terramycin in 72 years of beekeeping, and I destroy a colony the instant I see any symptom of AFB, so that it does not contaminate any of my other colonies or equipment; or infect my NEIGHBOR’S bee colonies