Hello Bill & All,
Bill Lord was on BEE-L when I came on and a regular back then. I learned
from Bill also!

>I am interested in your comments on cleaning up nosema over the course of a
>year.

I imagine you have followed most my nosema ceranae posts so will skim
through and ask questions if I skim too fast.

confession:
I have been feeding fumidil regularly for decades. Nosema ceranae sneaked up
on me because there was no staining like with nosema apis. Although nosema
apis spores were found in all my samples I rarely saw any staining.

My first deadouts were dwindling bees with high spore counts ( and fumidil
had been fed at the recommended rate).  I was puzzled why feeding in two
gallons of feed did not stop the problem but I assure those reading it did
not!

So after checking with Dr. Eric Mussen I went to a drench for awhile. Worked
for most hives with low spore counts but not this group of deadout boxes. I
tried two times to start bees in those boxes but by fall those hives crashed
with high nosema spore loads. then I read what Jerry bremenshenk wrote in
ABJ. I took the deaouts and sprayed a light solution of clorox water ( like
you sterilize extractors) and sprayed boxes and feeders. Let air for a 
couple weeks. Those boxes
now contain some of me best bees.

Acetic acid  is an option but I think I prefer the simple clorox method.

Bees not taking feed (when strong) is a sure sign of a problem in my
opinion. All my hives are empting feeders faster than I can afford to fill
now!

I will need to make another trip to buy sucrose.

>What's your advice for the future?

Once cleared up I have went backed to feeding fumigillin in syrup instead of 
the drench ( which is cheaper but labor and trips to the bees involved.

When spore counts drop into a normal range then you could only use when 
needed.

bob 

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