# NOSEMA AND NON-TREATMENT



## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

{dead bees the size of a football,}

I've heard the bees are large in Kansas but I had no idea  

How are you identifying it as Nosema this time of year? If I was not going to treat, convinced it was nosema and not just dysentary I'd eliminate. I've had nosema clear up in a strong hive during good weather with a flow on. With a couple of months of perodic confinement left it may be a breeding pool for the protozoan and spread.

[ February 21, 2007, 07:56 AM: Message edited by: Joel ]


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

>I have one hive with a bad case of nosema. Lots of dead bees the size of a football, and a small cluster of live bees the size of a softball. I saw the queen on the top bar last weekend.

Do you mean a football sized pile of beed dead...are they out front? Only a small cluster, with maybe a small patch of brood? Look for "K" winged bees on top of the cluster, or at the upper fringes. Are they more active than your other colonies, with a few bees
constantly flying out and dropping into that pile of dead bees, while your other colonies are more or less quiet?

If so, classic symptoms of Tracheal mite.


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## BULLSEYE BILL (Oct 2, 2002)

>I've heard the bees are large in Kansas but I had no idea 

You should see them south of here, (Texas)  

>How are you identifying it as Nosema this time of year? 

It's the only hive covered in bee crap inside and out, rapidly dying colony, struggling to survive at best. Something else I should look for?

>I've had nosema clear up in a strong hive during good weather with a flow on.

I've had this twice before this time of year and it cleared up. I did not have it last year.

>it may be a breeding pool for the protozoan and spread.

This is my worry, especially if it is the new type mentioned in another thread.

>convinced it was nosema and not just dysentary I'd eliminate.

What is the best way of cleaning the equipment short of burning? I can take the PC to the car wash, should I take the complete hive and bathe it in clorox first?


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## BULLSEYE BILL (Oct 2, 2002)

>Do you mean a football sized pile of beed dead...are they out front? Only a small cluster, with maybe a small patch of brood?

No, large cluster of dead bees in top center of hive. The smaller cluster of live bees were to the side in the corner, on honey. The queen happened to be on the top bar when I opened the hive. The hive is three mediums and has a small top entrance with mouse guard on bottom. The inner cover and top bars are covered with dark brown and thick bee crap.

I opened on a day when it was about 48 and windy, 35 mph. There were bees taking short cleansing flights in most of my hives. There is no brood in this hive. Brooding is barely started here in healthy hives.

>Look for "K" winged bees on top of the cluster, or at the upper fringes. 

I saw no K wing or deformed wings, although they did look dark and slick.

>Are they more active than your other colonies, with a few bees constantly flying out and dropping into that pile of dead bees, while your other colonies are more or less quiet?

I would say flying less than the other colonies and not doing their housework. Not a lot of dead outside the hive. It has been real cold for about three weeks, only got above freezing once or twice in that time and that was about the first day they could have flown if it had not been so windy.

>If so, classic symptoms of Tracheal mite. 

I always thought of T-mites as being the disappearing disease where there are hardly any bees left in the small dead cluster?


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

> large cluster of dead bees in top center of 
hive.

With heads in cells?
Any stores near where the dead cluster was found?

> The inner cover and top bars are covered with 
> dark brown and thick bee crap.

At least dysentery, perhaps nosema of the 
traditional sort, in addition to what appears 
to be starvation (assuming heads in cells).

Did you preserve any of the dead bees well
enough to look at some gut contents under a
microscope and look for the classic nosema
paramecium? 

But if you refuse to treat them, I'm not sure that
you have any way to save the smaller cohort of 
bees that survived, even in an observation hive,
as they will at least need to be fed if they are 
to survive until spring, and if they have a bad
case of nosema, they likely won't survive.

> I understand that there is a new and very bad
> type of nosema.

What, Nosema ceranae?
I've not heard that it has been found anywhere
except the Southeast, so I doubt very much that
this is your specific problem. The clues we do 
have here include:

</font>
Dysentery (brown poop), caused by the
(apparently) large indigestible fraction of
the fall honey the bees were expected to
somehow overwinter upon. The solution here
would be to take off the fall honey, and
feed them some nice pure sucrose or HFCS
to avoid the problem.</font>
Maybe starvation, given that the dead
bees were all in a bunch (if they were head-in,
and had no stores)</font>
Maybe lack of "critical mass", a lack of
enough population to keep all bees warm and
alive (but the queen and some bees survived,
so they must have been at the center of the
cluster, and benefited from the warmth of the
bulk of the bees who died)</font>
Aren't postmortems depressing?


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

Jim Fischer . . .

What are the symptoms of the "new" nosema?


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

Most of the information I've read has been
tentative, and everyone who has written anything
about it anywhere has stressed the preliminary
nature of their data and observations.

The one thing we know for sure is that Nosema
ceranae is "native" to the Asian honey bee Apis
cerana, but has been confirmed to be able to
infest Apis mellifera with ease.

Another thing known for certain is that in 
Spain and Germany in 2005, where colonies
were dying in large numbers, post-mortems 
confirmed Nosema ceranae in many of the dead-out
bees, so the most basic "symptom" is that this 
version of Nosema can apparently *kill* a 
hive, or can kill a hive that is first weakened by 
something else. (_"Can you say 'Varroa'? Sure you can..."_)

Regular old ("classic") Nosema apis never killed
hives outright, which explains why so few 
beekeepers test or treat for Nosema, despite the
constant refrain about it being the cause of a 
lot of weak colonies and poor production.
(My personal guess is that 25% of colonies have
it in any one spring, and the "solution" for
many beekeepers is to re-queen, which costs a
lot more than a Fumagillin treatment!)

The symptoms reported included:
</font>
Bees crawling on the ground at the 
front of the hive (a "classic" symptom)</font>
The usual fecal stain (also a "classic"
symptom)</font>
The "new" symptoms, apparently unique to Nosema
ceranae are *preliminarily* said to include:
</font>
Hives that were "OK" die quickly.</font>
Hives are full of dead bees</font>
Hives die "year round", not just
when one expects nosema to get serious
(when the bees are confined)</font>
Hives are observed making cleansing
flights at much lower temperatures than
one would expect, like 4C / 39F (When ya
gotta go, you gotta go, it seems!)</font>
Some hives are actually absconding as
a result of the infection</font>
Problem is, no one has really paid much
attention to what the symptoms are in Asia,
where this nosema version is "native".

The other problem is, there is still good
grounds to question if this is a new
invasive disease, or something that has been
in/on non-Asian bees for a while, and has only
recently gotten out of hand so that it was
noticed. (Lots of things escape notice
among beekeepers until they get bad enough
that beekeepers start losing hives.)

The detection technique requires molecular
genetics work (PCR), and one could also
argue that we only know that some of the
nosema infections are Nosema ceranae because
of the recent adoption of molecular genetics
in bee disease analysis. No way anyone would
have noticed the difference without the newer
technology, as the two forms of Nosema are
very similar in appearance.

So, maybe it has been around for a while, and
is going to be found to be widespread, but the
good news is that Fumagillin stops it cold, is 
fairly easy to deploy against it, and there is
no "resistance issue" to worry about, as would
be the case with antibiotics used against a
bacterial disease. Feeding some Fumagillin to
100% of one's hives every spring will never hurt.

There was a "scare story" that some hives in KY
tested positive for Nosema ceranae, but it was
later explained that these hives had recently
come up from Florida, where a lot of all that
newfangled "World Trade" comes into port, and
where we can continue to expect new and exciting
diseases and pests to arrive every year.

So, Nosema ceranae is a bio-terror weapon 
unleashed upon unwitting beekeepers who have yet 
to realize that the WTO is a much bigger threat 
to this country than the PLO and al-Queda 
combined.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

>I always thought of T-mites as being the disappearing disease where there are hardly any bees left in the small dead cluster?

Yes, the remaining cluster will be small, but...at least here where we have cold and snow for so long, even into April, The bees will be dead on the ground in front of the hive...not disappeared.


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## BULLSEYE BILL (Oct 2, 2002)

Sounds like nosema Apis to me. I'll just clean up the hive and take my losses. Doesn't sound like a good canidate for an OH.


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

BULLSEYE BILL . . .
Why not submit samples to bee lab?
Maybe you'll be "first in KS"










Jim Fischer . . .
>bio-terror weapon 
unleashed upon unwitting beekeepers who have yet 
to realize that the WTO is a much bigger threat 
to this country than the PLO and al-Queda 
combined . . .
Maybe you're joking, but this may be more true than we realize (or admit).
Thanx for the reply


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## BULLSEYE BILL (Oct 2, 2002)

Being first is not all that cool. Just ask that keeper in PA that was first to loose all those hives to CCD.


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

> Maybe you're joking

Nope, not a bit.
I'm not even exaggerating.


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## BULLSEYE BILL (Oct 2, 2002)

>Maybe you're joking, but this may be more true than we realize (or admit).

The thought of CCD being deliberatly set upon us is a bit disturbing.


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

> The thought of CCD being deliberatly set upon 
> us is a bit disturbing.

Well, we don't yet even really have a firm grip 
on what causes CCD, so we can't blame anyone or
anything for sending/bringing it to us, but 
Nosema ceranae comes from, ummm... China, where 
it was first reported that it had been found on 
Apis mellifera.

How did it get to Europe and Florida?
Gee, I dunno, but it sure as heck did not get
here in Chinese honey, now did it? And there
is no trade in queens or packages from China
to the USA or Europe, is there? 

But I don't want to create the jingoistic
image of some evil Fu-Manchu villian, some
mastermind bent on killing off competition
to increase their honey exports, that would
be ignorant and foolish. I'd guess it will
turn out to be the usual chain of errors
that could have been prevented with even
cursory levels of biosecurity in regard to
bees, but weren't, as no one considers 
biosecurity to be more than a barrier to
all that "free trade" they want to shove
down everyone's throats.

There is a possible more complex route from
Asia to either NZ or Australia, both which 
get a lot of cargo ships from Asia at their
ports, but then we'd have to explain how 
the infection spread to Florida... oh, never
mind - that's easy: beekeepers that bought
packages from Oz and/or NZ, and ended up
moving their bees to Florida, with the
disease getting out of hand only when the
bees were confined more often by the Florida
rainy season.

But all this is mere speculation at this point,
isn't it?


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## dickm (May 19, 2002)

>>>There was a "scare story" that some hives in KY
tested positive for Nosema ceranae, but it was
later explained that these hives had recently
come up from Florida, where a lot of all that<<<


Jim,
I corresponded with Tom Webster at UKY who is working on this. He had a hive that was clean in his yard but was moved to FL. Checked at a later time it had Nosema Ceranae. He knew nothing of the other rumors. There's a Dr Paxton in the UK also working on the ID and he thinks it's world wide. Like you I think it's a sleeper.

Dickm


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## Ski (Jan 18, 2007)

*Field stripping*

I have not done it but I saw a good video tape on field stripping a bee and how to identify a bad case of nosema. It was an old tape and may not address the new type if there are differences. The tape was Bee diseases from brushy Mountain.


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

The visual exam for nosema (brownish mid-gut) has been shown to
yield far too many false negatives.

If you want to really test, you are going to have to buy a cheap
child's microscope, and use it.


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## Axtmann (Dec 29, 2002)

Bill it is not so easy to get rid of nosema spores. Give your infected colony a new (clean) hive and new (clean) combs – frames. 
Remove all combs with spots on, cut the wax out and scrape the droppings from the frames, than heat up the empty frames with a torch till you can see the propolis boiling. This will kill the spores and you can use them again. Do the same with the hive body; heat the inside with a torch also.

Since I use Thymol strips (this is my second year) I find out the nosema problems are gone. I heard it is good against tracheal mites, sack brood and calk brood also. IMO beside the mites, something in the Thymol kills spores too.


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## dickm (May 19, 2002)

A friend was telling me the other day of a system of using acetic acid to kill Nosema in equipment. I thought this was vinegar but he went to a photography house to buy "glacial"(sp) acetic acid and has a system to clean the (empty) hive with it. I'll try to find out more.

dickm


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## Aspera (Aug 1, 2005)

The stuff we use at work is labeled glacial, and is basically vinagar without the water.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetic_acid

Be careful, as it is labeled with fire, and chemical reactivity hazard warnings.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Be careful, as it is labeled with fire, and chemical reactivity hazard warnings.

And don't let it get too cold, espcially if it's in a glass bottle. There is a reason they call it "galcial".


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## dickm (May 19, 2002)

Michael,
How are you doing, old friend. I've visited a lot of beekeepers since I met you. (Old guy, old camper). Any losses this year? 

Have you used acetic acid for Nosema? How did you rig it up if you did?

Dickm


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>How are you doing, old friend. I've visited a lot of beekeepers since I met you. (Old guy, old camper).

Yes, I know who you are.  You're welcome back anytime.

> Any losses this year?

All of the ones that tried to rear a large brood nest at the end of Decmeber and got caught with -12 nights for a week. All the ones that didn't try that did fine.

>Have you used acetic acid for Nosema?

No. But I've used it for stop bath all my life. I grew up in a dark room and remember the smell and the lable on the stop bath that says "Glacial acetic acid. WARNING freezes at 62 °F" from when I could barely read. It was in a glass bottle that would break if it froze.

Then I was a Lithiographic Photographer for six years and still used it.


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## dickm (May 19, 2002)

>>> I grew up in a dark room and remember the smell <<<

I had a hard life myself, but nothing like that. 

The more reactive russians or carniolans would shut down the brood rearing. Are your survivors black? I lost a lot because I was trying to do too much last Aug. I think I now understand that you can't wait till Aug to control mites. I vaporize O/A.

My friend has 100 hives and a lot of experience. He thinks Nosema is a silent weight the bees have to drag around that shortens lives and stunts the growth of the colony. He's very succesful. With Nosema Ceranae around the corner I'm thinking of treating with Fumagillin for the first time. I've never used anything but O/A. (FGMO years ago). 

dickm


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>The more reactive russians or carniolans would shut down the brood rearing.

Mine have in the past. These shut down about August and started back up in December.

> Are your survivors black?

Mostly.


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## suttonbeeman (Aug 22, 2003)

Some of the facts above were not totally correct. Tom Webster last April wanted me to take 4 hives to Florida to then be transported to maine for pollination and see how it affected them. He didnt get them ready in time and drove them him self to Pennsylvania first of May. The bees were then taken to NewYork, Penn, Maine and finally back to Florida at end of Sept. AT that time two were dead and two were alive. When I took my bees to Florida I saw the the colonies (end of Oct.) One was about 4 frames and one strong. The smaller one died and the larger one was diagnosed with Nosema Ceronae around Jan. It seems logical that the bees may have picked it up in Ny or Penn or Maine as well as Fl. I'm sure it is all over these states and others as bees are moved form Fl to the east coast up north by semi load after load along with queens and packages. It would seem more logical although the is no proof that the bees actually picked it up up north as they had only been in Fl 3 months when found and spent more time up north!


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## dickm (May 19, 2002)

Thanks for that information. That means that those who don't treat can lose a hive in 8 days without a warning in those locations. This is especially important to those of you reluctant to treat with fumigillin. 

dickm


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