# Dead Out Nosema?



## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

Your brood pattern looks bad, which this time of the year is most likely mites, it could also be EFB. How/when did you treat for mites.

I would send a sample to the lab for free testing. Send bees for a nosema and mite test and send comb with brood in it for an EFB, AFB... test

https://www.ars.usda.gov/northeast-...search-laboratory/docs/how-to-submit-samples/


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## Charlestonbee (Mar 26, 2015)

Flower planter if it was efb this time of year what could have been done?


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## Forgiven (Nov 17, 2016)

Wouldn't nosema be messier?


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

bee luscious said:


> My thoughts are nosema.


What makes you think nosema?


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Hard to diagnose with just one frame and a cup full of bees to look at. 

Have you treated for Varroa Mites?
What did the rest of the frames look like, besides having stores? 
You had plenty of bees ... were they all dead in the hive, or were many missing?


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

I am with Mike. There is simply too little information. One would have to know the developmental stage of that frame to determine brood development and causation. Could be a cyclical condition that left the brood pattern spotty! 
I just do not see the excrement on the top bars associated with nosema. 
lots of stores is all well nd good But where were the stores what are your temperatures? A tightly clustered colony that has retreated to the top of the hive may not be able to break cluster to move laterally to access resources if temperatures are low. When was your last Mite treatment If any? Did you find mites on the bottom board along with the bees?


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## bee luscious (Nov 28, 2007)

Mike Gillmore said:


> Hard to diagnose with just one frame and a cup full of bees to look at.
> 
> Have you treated for Varroa Mites?
> What did the rest of the frames look like, besides having stores?
> You had plenty of bees ... were they all dead in the hive, or were many missing?


Treated for mites in late August and September, hives were booming with bees when went into winter months. And all of the bees were dead. My reasoning for nosema is its the only thing I could think of at the time, will take advise and send samples out. And all of the equipment was newer.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

That's good to know. Sending samples would be a good idea.

The only thing that jumped out at me was your pic of the dead bees. There appear to be a lot of bees with swollen abdomens. Not sure what that means, it's just something I noticed. 

Was the hive entrance clear and not blocked with dead bees?


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

bee luscious said:


> Treated for mites in late August and September


How did you treat?


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## bee luscious (Nov 28, 2007)

Mike Gillmore said:


> That's good to know. Sending samples would be a good idea.
> 
> The only thing that jumped out at me was your pic of the dead bees. There appear to be a lot of bees with swollen abdomens. Not sure what that means, it's just something I noticed.
> 
> Was the hive entrance clear and not blocked with dead bees?


Thanks for the info I will have them sent off for testing, I will give an update on the results.


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## BadBeeKeeper (Jan 24, 2015)

FlowerPlanter said:


> Your brood pattern looks bad...


I don't see how you can judge a 'brood pattern' in a dead hive.

The brood hatched out while the hive was at the end of the decline and there simply was not enough bees to keep the unhatched brood warm enough, so they died in the cells and didn't hatch. Brood pattern can only be judged in a living hive with an extant queen.

I don't see any sign of Nosema. I have had hives that got it, and it is clearly evident- very messy and nasty.

My guess, mite crash.


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## Forgiven (Nov 17, 2016)

There's brood, has it been cold lately? Could have just refused to abandon the brood and frozen...


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

>I don't see how you can judge a 'brood pattern' in a dead hive.

Spotty brood pattern is the sole pre diagnoses for just about every brood disease; AFB, EFB, chalk brood, sac brood... and can also indicate many other things like mites, chilled brood, laying worker... This spotty brood pattern takes up much of the frame. It could be many things, that's why I recommended a "free lab test". The lab will check for all brood diseases with comb sample and mites and both types of nosema with a bee sample. And it's FREE.

>I don't see any sign of Nosema. I have had hives that got it, and it is clearly evident- very messy and nasty.

Not necessarily, you also can't rule it out without a lab or lab work;

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/nosema-ceranae-not-your-fathers-nosema/

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnosema.htm#ceranae

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...AU2YolAUw-1okqjXtUq7Ig&bvm=bv.142059868,d.amc

>My guess, mite crash. 

Me too, but I also considered the spotty brood not just some dead bees.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

BadBeeKeeper said:


> My guess, mite crash.


How does a treated hive (at least twice in this case), still die of a mite crash?:scratch:


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

fieldsofnaturalhoney said:


> How does a treated hive (at least twice in this case), still die of a mite crash?


Do you know how it was treated? The op chose not to say.


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## BadBeeKeeper (Jan 24, 2015)

FlowerPlanter said:


> >I don't see how you can judge a 'brood pattern' in a dead hive.
> 
> Spotty brood pattern is the sole pre diagnoses for just about every brood disease; AFB, EFB, chalk brood, sac brood...


Sure, if the hive is still alive and you can see that the pattern is bad, but to my way of thinking, not so much once it's dead. Checking the remaining brood cells might yield some additional information though.



> How does a treated hive (at least twice in this case), still die of a mite crash?


Depends on what it was 'treated' with, and/or whether or not the treatment was applied correctly. Without that information we have no way to know if the treatment was efficacious.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Most hives I've examined that have crashed from Varroa mites have a lot of dead bees with short "shrunken" abdomens. The bees in the pics above appear to be quite the opposite.


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

Forgiven said:


> Wouldn't nosema be messier?


not necessarily. one of my hives had nosema, was tested by beltsville, 6 million spores, very high count. they did not specify whether it was apis or cerana; i was told it was probably cerana. to tell you the truth i couldn't really tell, it was a big active hive, full of honey. loaded with bees. a bear took it out in November.


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## Forgiven (Nov 17, 2016)

Cloverdale said:


> not necessarily. one of my hives had nosema, was tested by beltsville, 6 million spores, very high count. they did not specify whether it was apis or cerana; i was told it was probably cerana. to tell you the truth i couldn't really tell, it was a big active hive, full of honey. loaded with bees. a bear took it out in November.


Wait, bear took it out? So..... before it died out of the nosema (even if it was probably going to?)... 

Granted, I may be biased, from what I hear it's usually quite visible around here, with bees unable to make cleansing flights for months, they end up making it visible, I suppose if they can go out they will...


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

Please take a look at Randy Olivers site, an article on the "nosema twins". Also, if you subscribe to Bee-l they had a great discussion on nosema cerana and bee poop. Nosema cerana is different from n. apis, you really cannot treat it, it makes it worse for some reason that I cannot remember. In the winter n. cerana actually gets better ( I know I am using the incorrect vocabulary here) and worsens in the nicer weather. 
When the NYS bee inspector tested that hive (my hives had AFB and had to burn 11) which was in a different location from my home yard, it was thriving, and continued to thrive till it the mom and cub had a very tasty meal before winter. I was shocked that the count was so high. Of course I was not there that often to watch the behavior of my bees in that yard. The other hive there did contract AFB but not that one. It was a split we did with Minnesota Hygenic lineage.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>How does a treated hive (at least twice in this case), still die of a mite crash?

Fluvalinate and Cumophos (Apistan and Chekmite) have not worked here for at least 15 years. Treating for mites does not guarantee that the mites are dead.


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

Michael Bush said:


> >How does a treated hive (at least twice in this case), still die of a mite crash?
> 
> Fluvalinate and Cumophos (Apistan and Chekmite) have not worked here for at least 15 years. Treating for mites does not guarantee that the mites are dead.


I don't think too many of us use hard chemicals in their hives anymore.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

And yet they keep selling them...

https://www.mannlakeltd.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=apistan


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

Michael Bush said:


> And yet they keep selling them...
> 
> https://www.mannlakeltd.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=apistan


Yes they are advertised, but I still personnaly do 
not know of anyone that uses the hard chemicals. It would be interesting to see how many on Beesource use the hard chemicals.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

Cloverdale said:


> It would be interesting to see how many on Beesource use the hard chemicals.


To me, it would be even more interesting to see how many use treatments (hard or soft) and still have bees die of a mite crash?


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

fieldsofnaturalhoney said:


> To me, it would be even more interesting to see how many use treatments (hard or soft) and still have bees die of a mite crash?


I too would be interested in that but believe it would be incorrect timing on the beekeepers part or not switching treatments. Of course most of us beekeepers will use brood breaks and other non invasive tactics in addition to soft treatments WITH the goal of not having to do much treatments at all. Going back to mite crashes we can't control those beekeepers around us that don't do anything and are mite bombs to others.


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## BadBeeKeeper (Jan 24, 2015)

fieldsofnaturalhoney said:


> To me, it would be even more interesting to see how many use treatments (hard or soft) and still have bees die of a mite crash?


For me, that would be exactly...zero.

I have a number of Russian hybrid hives that I did not treat this Fall...we'll see what happens with the mite counts in the Spring.


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## edugan (Mar 15, 2016)

Just had a hive die out 12/26/17. Did not have much of a mess around my hive. Few brown streaks around top entrance of hive. Sent bees to Beltsville and Nosema was the cause. got my results back 1/12/17. Send your bees in, get the answers you need.


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## Bee Arthur (Mar 21, 2015)

Michael Bush said:


> >How does a treated hive (at least twice in this case), still die of a mite crash?
> 
> Fluvalinate and Cumophos (Apistan and Chekmite) have not worked here for at least 15 years. Treating for mites does not guarantee that the mites are dead.


And if oxalic acid was used, a single treatment in August and a single treatment in September would not be adequate for bringing the mite population down to safe levels. So a generic proclamation of treating doesn't really rule out a mite crash.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

There are two kinds of nosema, one of which causes diarrhea, the other does not. N cerenae is presently the most common form and does not produce diarrhea. The USDA bee labs check for nosema by microscopic examination of the guts, assuming you can get the samples to them in fresh enough condition.

Even if it is nosema, for that to kill a hive there is often another condition that weakened them to the point where nosema got out of hand. That often turns out to be varroa mites.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

edugan said:


> Just had a hive die out 12/26/17. Did not have much of a mess around my hive. Few brown streaks around top entrance of hive. Sent bees to Beltsville and Nosema was the cause. got my results back 1/12/17. Send your bees in, get the answers you need.


And I got my results from Beltsville the day before you, saying "no nosema, you ought to do something about those mites". So I guess that tells us they actually do check!


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## edugan (Mar 15, 2016)

I did get the mite results back also and it was low. .4 per 100 bees.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

FlowerPlanter said:


> Your brood pattern looks bad, which this time of the year is most likely mites, it could also be EFB. How/when did you treat for mites.
> 
> I would send a sample to the lab for free testing. Send bees for a nosema and mite test and send comb with brood in it for an EFB, AFB... test
> 
> https://www.ars.usda.gov/northeast-...search-laboratory/docs/how-to-submit-samples/


Bee luscious is in Minnesota. I'd be surprised to find any brood there in December. I would be wondering how long any capped brood had been there, and how dead it was. Of course, that could be a clue.


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