# nosema pics



## Terry G (Feb 6, 2005)

this is what I saw while I was doing some testing.

http://i724.photobucket.com/albums/ww245/terrygreidanus/2009-04-10-61090.jpg

http://i724.photobucket.com/albums/ww245/terrygreidanus/2009-04-10-61220.jpg

looks like I will be treating with fumagilin tomorrow. 
I Could'nt find any nosema pics on this site so I thought I would post 1 of mine. this is at 1000x could not get enough resoution with my web cam at 400x


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Thanks much for the post Terry!

How do you see that? Do you pull out the abdomen and then does the midgut hang out or something? Is that what you put under the microscope, the midgut? Do you have to squish it or cut it open or anything?


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## Terry G (Feb 6, 2005)

Randy Oliver has some excellent info on his website www.scientificbeekeeping.com. 

I got a 100 bee sample added 100 ml of water blendered it in my blender till it was milky, {the cruchy stuff floats to the top right away you don't want this stuff on your slide}, took a drop of the milky fluid underneath the crunchy stuff with an eye dropper and put it on my slide placed a slip cover on it, waited a minute for the nosema spores to settle to the bottom and placed under my microscope. I tried to copy Randy Olivers Method. 

you can also pinch of 10 abdomens and crush them in a mortar and pedistal but remember you need 1 ml of water per bee or abdomen for accuracy in diagonsis for your spore count.


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

what kind of magnification would you need on a microscope?


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## Terry G (Feb 6, 2005)

400 X is required to see the spores. Don't waste you money on a cheap microscope. You get what you pay for... But you don't need the best either


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## simplyhoney (Sep 14, 2004)

Hey Terry G,

For sure looks like nosema. I too have bee playing with Olivers methods. There are a couple of things I have found:

1: there are some oblong nosema-like somethings if you look at the sample with any power less than 400. So I guess be sure and use 400 power.

2: The dilution of the sample will GREATLY alter your outcome. you will notice on Randy's pages that he is continually updating the amount of water or alcohol to use when sampling. Which makes sense, the more solution used the less spores per view. I hurt my eyes one day looking into a microscope and playing with samples of bees. If you sample enough bees with Olivers method you will come to the conclusion that while the microscope will tell you if Nosema is present, it is virtually impossimble to tell if it is a problem. At least thats how it was in my case. I suppose if you found consistant counts from one colony you may have something, But I found nosema in some 100 bee samples and couldn't find any in other 100 bee samples from the same colony or the colony next door.
At any rate it's fun to try and if you run across a mite ....check that guy out under 400 power. WICKED!!!


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## Terry G (Feb 6, 2005)

400 x magnification for sure...

I am doing yard samples and not hive samples. I am vacuming returing foragers. I just want a sense of how of how much nosema is present, compared to other yards. How does my winter loss relate to Nosema spore counts? How effective was my fumigillan treatment last fall? Do I need to treat again.

I am finding that the yards that had to drench treatments last fall had higher winter kill than the yards that had 3 drench treatments. I drenched 100 ml of light sugar water mixed at ratio of approx 150 hives to the bottle. times 3 doses equals 50 hives to the bottle

The area where I experienced the highest losses missed a treatment but they were double dosed to make up for the lost treatment. I learned that double dosing is not effective and that multiple doses are more effective. Mayby a 4treatments drenched at 200 hives to the bottle might be the best for a fall treatment. I know that it is now recomended that for control of nosema crenae that 3 treatments of 300 hives to the bottle of fumagillan a week apart are required for a sping application.

I am also building hivetop feeders so that I can control the amount of feed that each hive gets. Eliminate robbing from the feed drum, and be able to properly medicate each hive with fumagilin


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## John Fulp (Apr 27, 2008)

Terry G

What make/model microscope do you use or recommend? I think this would be an interesting part of beekeeping.

John


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

*Nosema*

Terry:

Hello from the west coast. So your bees have Nosemae, but unless I'm mistaken you don't know how much Nosemae. It looks like your slide does not have a grid system on it , so you can't multiply the amount of spores in a grid by " some factor " to give you an idea of how many spores per bee. The economic threshold being 1 000 000 spores per bee. 

To me looks like you are on the right track but you need to spend just a few more dollars to get the fancy slides so you know how many spores per bee you have. Like simplyhoney mentioned dilution of the samples will alter the results, but I suppose that if the same method is used every time then you could track yard levels following treatments that way you know if they are going up or down and how effective a particular treatment was.

Jean-Marc


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

terry g writes:
400 X is required to see the spores.

tecumseh:
thanks terry g. 

I got an old used leitz microscope (use to be the property of a 'country' doctor) for chrismas that I wish to employ for exactly the purpose you touch on here. the old leitz has a monocular and binocular eyepiece... is one or the other better for this kind of work?

does anyone know where a grid type slide can be obtained and what might the 'factor' rate be (which I would guess would be highly related to magnification and numbers of grids on the slide????).

and thank ya' terryg for movin' us old stogy beekeepers along on a path to being better beekeepers.


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## honeyshack (Jan 6, 2008)

Good pics

Get the mann lake catalogue (on line too maybe). In it, there are two pictures on page 56 of Nosema C and A. From your pics it looks like nosema C.
In the catalogue is also grid slides for counting. The bigger blobs are nosema A...compareing yours to mann lakes


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## Terry G (Feb 6, 2005)

tecumseh said:


> terry g writes:
> 
> I got an old used leitz microscope (use to be the property of a 'country' doctor) for chrismas that I wish to employ for exactly the purpose you touch on here. the old leitz has a monocular and binocular eyepiece... is one or the other better for this kind of work?
> 
> ...


As to what kind of microscope is good... My guess is as good as yours, My friend has a beekeeper special from Microscope.com and I purchased something similar from the same place. I also purchased a cheap one from a different place and it promptly got sent back the next day. You get what you pay for.

What jean-marc and tecumseh are talking about is a hemocytometer. I purchased one from e-bay and borrowed one from Medivet to try. basicly I don't want to count spores. I am woried my eyes will get sore from staring at a slide. The hemocytometer that I got from ebay is junk I can't see the lines in the grid. they are to hard to discern and it needs to go back. Where as the one borrowed from Medivet is great and very easy to use. Except that my microscope can't focus on the top of the slide because there is not enough travel in the focus. The beekeeper special will focus on it and is a better microscope because of this..

I think that if I always prepare my slides in the same manner, creating consistancy, I will be able to discern my spore loads just by glancing at a slide. I do not need to know how million's of spores each hive has I want to be able to see if my treamants are working, and If I have a potential problem.

By the way It is also posible to test the dead bees found in the bottom of a dead out for nosema spores. just grind them up in a blender with water for a bit till fine and then place a drop of the juice on a slide. remember nosema spores stay viable for a number of years.

I may need to get the hemocytometer from manlake. I Think that it is important to own one. You never know when you will want to determin acurate numbers.

by the way Jean Marc long time no see


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