On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 8:13 AM Peter Armitage <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> A number of our beekeepers here in Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) are
> reporting dysentery symptoms  following lengthy periods of cold weather and
> lack of cleansing flights. Nothing surprising there, eh? I have one colony
> displaying such symptoms and my Nosema spp. spore count points to nosemosis.
>

BTDT Every fall my bees pick up honeydew from the pine forest right next to
them. I have supers over an inner cover to pick up all the fall honey and
especially the honey dew. I pull that in late September and it is the best
of all the honeys I extract every year.

Before I did that my bees had dysentery every year. After that, zero. I
cannot pin point the honeydew as the cause, but the honeydew honey stays
liquid and the bees cannot cap the cells, so, in spring, you can shake out
the honey. Plus the other fall honeydew honey I extracted the year before
is still liquid and stays that way for a long time. The other fall nectar
sources crystallize in a heartbeat.

That it stays liquid is one of the causes of the dysentery. Part of it
ferments and the bees eat it and, coupled with its high mineral content and
cooped up with no cleansing flights, you have the perfect dysentery storm.

I would take the nosema counts with a grain of salt since what I have seen
of the topography and flora of NL you are a lot like Maine so I have little
doubt that you are the recipient of the joys of honey dew (- as long as you
get it off the hive and into your stomach). HD is considered a delicacy in
many parts of the world and I agree with that assessment. Really good
tasting honey.

Really bad for our bees in cold climates.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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