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Do’s and Dont's of AFB Control |
DO'S
- Inspect your hives for AFB at least twice a year.
- Inspect hives before removing bees, honey or equipment.
- Inspect all brood frames.
- Shake bees off the frames before inspecting them.
- Train yourself and your staff in techniques to recognise and eliminate AFB.
- Report AFB to the Management Agency within 7 days.
- Burn infected colonies.
- Feed pollen substitutes rather than pollen.
- Feed sugar syrup rather than frames of honey.
- Use hive and apiary quarantines.
- Only use approved sterilisation methods.
- Use a thermometer and timer when wax dipping (10 min at 160oC).
- Treat hives to clear up parasitic mite syndrome (PMS) before checking for AFB.
- Become an approved beekeeper.
- Get suspect AFB samples tested.
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DONT'S
- Don’t feed drugs to control AFB.
- Don’t scorch boxes to sterilize them.
- Don’t try to control AFB by removing diseased frames.
- Don’t extract honey from infected colonies.
- Don’t feed bee-collected pollen to colonies.
- Don’t feed extracted honey to bees.
- Don’t let hives get robbed out.
- Don’t shook swarm.
- Don’t let stock knock over beehives.
- Don’t use steam chests to sterilise infected equipment.
- Don’t distribute the equipment from dead hives between other hives.
- Don’t allow colonies to die of varroa or any other cause.
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