# Fumagillin-B Dribble Method



## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

Are any of you using the "Dribble" method of applying Fumagillin-B?
What are the advantages or disadvantages?
What is the doseage in mg of a.i./unit of volumn?
Frequency?
Please do not make replies about "non-treatment"
Thank you,


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Randy did a few studies on this method on nosema C. and says that he felt it to be "a waste of money"... for my own curiosity I had asked a few researchers and experimentalists to run similar studies for a comparison of results in colonies with high counts of nosema c. as well as those with nosema a... the results showed a minimal effect on nosema c. While the method proved to be effective in lowering counts in 29% of hives effected by nosema a... from the results of these studies, I would recommend that bee keepers follow the more proven methods of application to protect their investments. Hope this helps.


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

Russell,
Thank you for your posting.
There seems to be a lot of variables in the field test that were done.
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/field-trial-of-several-nosema-treatments/

Results

Mean survival of colonies (arbitrarily set at 4 frames or stronger) at April 3 was 50%. Highest survival (88%) was in the pollen substitute/fumagillin group; lowest survivals were in the untreated controls (38%) and in the bleach treatment (25%). The data of this trial are shown in the Appendix.

The colonies showing the least amount of strength loss from December 15 to February 25 were the group fed pollen substitute plus fumagillin. By April 3, mean colony strength had generally rebounded to approximately their starting strength for most groups. The notable exceptions were the pollen substitute/fumagillin group, whose mean strength increased by 227%, and the bleach group, which had only recovered 64% of their original strength.

On the average, 3 colonies in each group of 8 were over 8 frames on April 8. Only two groups were marginally better (to 4 colonies out of 8)—the pollen substitute/fumagillin and HoneyBHealthy. However, two of the HoneyBHealthy colonies had started at 10 frames, so I don’t feel that HoneyBHealthy’s performance in this regard was notable. 

Dr. Nancy Ostiguy generously volunteered to have a student perform nosema spore counts of the bee samples. Unfortunately, they were not complete by the time of this progress report. 

The great variability of colony performance likely precludes any statistical significance, but I will run statistics when the spore counts are completed.

In April, I spot-checked a large proportion of the surviving colonies for nosema levels. The majority were still infected in the range of a few million spores per bee. I only found one colony that had few spores. Despite this infection, most of the colonies that survived the winter went on to produce honey, and in several cases, to produce swarms. The bees in the swarms that I captured all ran at infection levels of a few million spores per bee.

However, not all colonies built up. Several colonies continued to dwindle, or stayed stuck at about 4 frames for most of the season. I could not find any correlation between colony strength and buildup and nosema levels. The one observation that stood out was that those colonies that did not build up generally had spotty brood, and sick larvae and pupae. The symptoms were generally EFB-like, or sacbrood-like, but it isn’t clear that those diseases were actually the cause.

I sent samples of sick bees to Dr. Jay Evans at USDA, Dr. Nancy Ostiguy at Penn State, Dr. Michelle Flenniken at U.C. Davis, and Dr. Jerry Bromenshenk/Dave Wicks at BVS. The three report results back to date are shown below.


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Thanks for the link. I rarely get the chance to read Randy's writings... while I was on his site, I took a look around and found this for you...

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/nosema-drench-treatment-trial/

In this study he tests several products on nosema c. infected colonies... all using the drenching method... his findings were as he had said, inconsistent and thus he was unable to truly identify the effectiveness of this method as opposed to the common application methods... in the group that had the best results, there were also the worst results, and in most cases the control group seemed to perform as well or better than the groups treated by the drenching method... hope this helps.


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

This information is very interesting:
However, a single drench will only give a temporary dose. To control nosema, it appears that the treatment must be given continually over a period of at least one full brood cycle, in order to prevent reinfection of the new generation of bees. When treating with gallons of heavy syrup in the fall, it is easy to give a continuous dose to the bees as they eat their way through the stored medicated “honey.” In order to get the same effect with the drench method, it must be repeated more than once, and at frequent intervals. The question is: how frequently, and for how many doses? *Higes (2006) found that treatment of colonies with 30mg of fumagillin a.i., repeated weekly four times was effective at controlling N. ceranae.* However, note that it took until a week after the fourth treatment until no more spores were detected.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

one of the problems with bees that are heavely infected with nosema C. is that they refuse to take the sugar water from feeders, I use the drench method on these hives and then when I put on feeders with fumagillin they now take the feed. so I can't comment if it works as a cure or not, but it gets them healthy enough that they will take there medicine when you want them to. I haven't had to dribble any the last two years and all but two of my hives took there medicine this fall.


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

Mike,
Thank you for your posting.
How much Fumagillin-B syrup did you apply, the concentration and the number of applications?
Thanks


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

Does fum-b work on adult bees or do you need to feed it while brood is being raised? I ask because if I feed now and Im nearly broodless is it a waist of time or perfect time for one dose. All my bees take syrup like champs, I hope that means Im at low risk?

Directions are for one dose, should it be feed once a week for three weeks when brood is being reared? If so do you need to apply three times at recommended dose or what, that would be VERY EXPENSIVE?


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

10/22/2011
WI-beek,

Here's some information written by Dr. E. Mussen 
http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/faculty/Mussen/beebriefs/Nosema_Disease.pdf


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

BEES4U said:


> Mike,
> Thank you for your posting.
> How much Fumagillin-B syrup did you apply, the concentration and the number of applications?
> Thanks


I mixed one teaspoon in a hand sprayer(will see if I can find it again), with the intent of spraying the bees on the frames, the sprayer wouldn't spray sugar water, so i pulled the top and just dribbled it between and on the frames. next time I used a 2lb bear, one teaspoon full, and kept dribbled every couple of days until they started taking the fumidil from the feeders. The info I found indicated that you wanted more fumidil in a drench than they normally put in a gallon. I'll see if I can find where I got the information. I did this only on the hives that wouldn't take the fumidil, every spring after I feed my nucs fumidil and never had to do a dribble again, been 4 years.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

I remember where I found it, foolish place to find it, on the label of the product. I'll type it below

Heavily infested colonies that will no longer take in syrup may be sprayed repeatedly, directly onto the bees, frame by frame with 1:1 sugar syrup(one part sugar to one part water) containing 2 g of fumagilin=B per litre of syrup. they don't say how many times or how often.

the directions above this say: medicated syrup is best prepared at a concentration of 25mg fumagillin base pre litre of syrup. I'm not good with the metric system but 2g per litre is alot more than 25mg per liter. so if I did the math correctly(doubtful) the dribble is 80 times stronger?

also when trying to find the above, there was a thread on this site that asked how to store fumidil, the medivet site has questions and answers, I copied the one about storage.

Can I put Fumagilin-B in the freezer?

Yes, Fumagilin-B can be frozen. No problem


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

here is a post look for honeyshack she gives a link to the label, I'll post it but it displays to me sideways and I can't get it to go up and down.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?259446-Fumagilin-B-Questions


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

This might help
1g of Fumagillin-B = 21mg a.i
Therefore,
21mg/!,one gram of Fumagilli-B
I will add some data later.


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

Dr. E. Mussen on:
Feeding Fumagillin-B in the fall.
1.0 Feed for weight.
2.0 Feed Fumagillin-B
N. apis,
In order to "cover the bases" in Minnesota, if a colony population had one million or more spores per bee in April, we fed it two gallons of fumagillin-medicated, heavy (two parts sugar : one part water) syrup the following September. If we had to "feed for weight," that was done earlier, so that the early syrup could be "ripened" and stored before the medicated syrup was applied. If the medicated syrup is mixed with other, unripened syrup, it can be diluted to ineffective concentrations. We anticipated that the medicated syrup would be consumed throughout the winter. Spore deposition on combs in early winter would be reduced and the parasite could not reproduce in medicated bees that became inoculated in the spring. The syrup would be consumed, totally, long before the bees produced any honey.


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