One other thing, which, I think, caps the discussion.

Dysentery is almost always a feed problem, especially with wintered bees. If
bees are wintered on honey which is has a high ash content, has not cured,
is still thin or crystallizes easily, they can have dysentery especially if
they cannot fly and poop. BTDT early in my beekeeping experience.

My guess is that dysentery is more a hobby beekeeper problem as most
commercial operations feed either sugar or HFCS, for winter feed, both of
which have none of those problems. Also, if you have times in the winter
when the bees can fly, that reduces the chances of dysentery being a
problem.

So if a beekeeper who manages winter stores for their bees ends up with
their bees showing dysentery, the highest probability of a correct diagnosis
would be Nosema. That is before you even check the fecal material or the
bees. Add a positive fecal matter check, and you have pretty well isolated
it and confirmed that NC does cause dysentery.

Not quite QED, but close. (I think like Allen, a terrible thing to
contemplate, but know of a couple of things that could disprove it, but I
would be stretching.)

If anyone recalls, the whole issue here was that a positive indicator of NC
was no dysentery and anyone who says otherwise has not passed beekeeping
101. Granted, I have not passed beekeeping 101, but most of us, I hope,
ascribe to the Quaker Prayer,  "Remember, you may be wrong".

Dogma is good in some places but not on this list. We tend to question
everything, like how safe some pesticides are to bees.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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