After suspecting for a while that Metropolis had American Foul Brood, I can confirm that there is no AFB in the Metropolis hive. Which is nice, because the standard response to having AFB is you dig a hole, stick your hives in it, burn it to the ground, and cover it over. For $16 bucks a year (count 'em...) you register with the Department of Primary Industry. This makes you officially a farmer, even if you live in Northcote. Those $16 bucks cover you for up to 60 hives. They will compensate you if your hives are infected. As long as you follow the rules, the local council can't hassle you for keeping bees, as you are now covered by state laws, which over-ride the local by-laws. They recognise that keeping bees in a suburban backyard is a benefit to all. And, they give you a sample bottle and a stamped self-addressed padded bag for you to send them a sample, which they check for disease. Which I did, got the results back a few days ago. Negative.Whew.
It's their way of monitoring the health of the Victorias bees.
I think this is a good idea.
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