Bob said
suggested to Jerry back in 2007 (in archives) to use an abandoned airfield
to set hives
and recover the dead flyers
We didn't need to do this at an air strip, we had a CCD colony that
crashed, rebounded. We placed it in an observation hive. Initially we had lots
of bees (covering most of both sides of 5 frames) and two queens (one under
each side of glass and each stayed on her own side). This 'recovered
colony was growing fast
, then suddenly it took another CCD-type crash, followed by several
smaller ones, and ended up with one queen and six bees. We sampled every few
days and the Army analyzed these bees - bees in the hive, dead ones we found
in the exit tube, and sometimes we even found a few dead and dying bees on
the ground. We documented N ceranae and a wide variety of viruses in the
first samples of the time series. N. ceranae was common to all sample
periods. Eventually, we found mainly N. ceranae and one virus. Its in our
paper. And as for our critics, we have finally found the time to finish a
rebuttal to those who think the Army doesn't know how to conduct proteomics
analysis, which we are submiiting for publication. Lots of things our critics
forgot to mention about their own methods.
Bob also said:
A suggestion was made to feed Honey Bee Healthy( HBH) when bees are off
feed
by jerry Bromenshenk with heavy nosema infestation.
With all do respect to Jerry. We find HBH does stimulate feeding by bees
(so Bob agrees with me here) but
the problem as defined by Dr. Eric Mussen (USC Davis Bee lab) is the bees
are unable to take up syrup in the normal way
I have the greatest respect for Eric. I can only report what we've seen.
Bees with heavy Nosema plus virus infections tend to stop taking any syrup
at all, with or without fumagillin. Drenching tends to kill a pecentage
of bees. Bees that have stopped feeding tend not to survive. Adding Honey
Bee Healthy stimulated feeding on syrup with fumagillin, and our colonies
that resumed feeding, taking up the treatment drug, usually recovered.
After recovery, it wasn't uncommon to see highf Nosema spore counts,
despite the treatment. Robb Cramer has conducted tests that indicate that these
may be leftover, dead spores. He has a method of distinguishing btw
viable (live) spores, and inviable (dead) spores based on their mass.
I'm not sure what is meant about bees "unable to take up syrup in the
normal way". We see sick bees just stop feeding on syrup, with or without the
drug. If we catch this event when it first starts, adding Honey Bee
Healthy was enough of a stimulant that the bees would resume feediing on syrup
containing fumagillin. Not taking syrup was abnormal. The bees that resumed
feeding took up what we'd classify as normal amounts of syrup for the size
of the population and time of year.
Jerry
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