Why look at the brood?

I had a customer call me. He said that his hive was dwindling. After talking about it I suggested maybe it was Nosema Ceranae. But he said he treated already with fumigilan. He has kept bees for several years and was confident with the process.
He said he would go back and look again.
He called me back later after another beekeeper looked at his colonies with him.
It turns out he had American Foulbrood. The discussion of the hive problem would have been diagnosed had I known that there was a brood issue.
Word to the wise is if a hive isn't getting stronger pulling some brood frames will tell the tale. Anytime there is discolored and or misshapen brood there is usually a disease problem. While not always AFB, a clue there is a problem will help in finding a cure.
Brood that is glistening pearly white is healthy. Any brood that does not look like that, there is a problem.
How AFB gets transmitted is usually through buying used equipment that has AFB scale in the combs, feeding
someone else's honey to your bees, or through a colony robbing out a dying AFB infected colony.