> The almost perfect alignment within the two groups [treated/surviving/higher-nosmea-counts vs. untreated/dead/lower-nosema-counts] casts great doubt on the conclusion that a higher nosema ceranae level indicates future survival.  One really needs to separate the nosema count from acid varroa control...and ultimately from varroa control all together if one is to reach such conclusions.

Nobody I know is suggesting that nosema contributes to survival. What is being suggested is that if there are higher levels of nosema in the survivors it *may* be due to the fact that they lived longer. Sort of like higher levels of cancer in older people. If you live long enough you are pretty likely to get some form of cancer eventually. This does not mean that cancer causes a long life! 

What was looked for in this study was a significant indicator for survival. Low levels of varroa and the concomitant low levels of virus is just such a significant indicator. This statement is irrespective of HOW you get the low levels of varroa. It does not mandate varroa control measures. In any good IPM regime, if the levels are low, there is no need to treat. What they are suggesting is monitoring and making informed decisions.

If nosema is not a critical player, then there is no need to feed antibiotics to bees. I know hundreds of beekeepers who aren't going to use fumagillin, no matter what, but people that feed it routinely just in case, might want to reconsider. 

What we are discussing is the prevention of losses. If you are not treating your hives and are content with the level of loss you incur, then there is simply no need to change your methodology. I often suggest to people that doing nothing more than dividing and replacing their hives IS sustainable, though not necessarily profitable nor satisfactory when compared to more proactive beekeeping.

But what is the action that flows from this work? Essentially, to refocus our efforts to keeping down levels of varroa, and continuing to monitor levels of all pathogens. Now, this is NOT to say that everyone should use acid on their hives. Everyone on this list regards mite resistant bees as a viable plan. If you have them, keep them. If you don't have them, get them. 

Biological controls need to be ramped up as well. I was able to keep mite levels down to non-critical levels using drone removal. I intend to continue this method and recommend it to all. It is labor intensive, but I submit that many sideliners do not spend ENOUGH time with their bees, and the attention required to do drone trapping benefits in other ways. It pays to know what is going on in your hives.

For those who do not find that mite resistant bees are capable of keeping levels down, we need to ascertain the reasons why this is. It appears that high levels of mites can be found in such colonies as result of susceptible bees crashing in the vicinity. You may have colonies in which mites do not reproduce successfully and hence, do not build up to critical levels BUT if then they go out and rob crashing hives they may bring back huge numbers of mites and fail anyway.

Finally, we need to focus on mite controls that work and do not build up residues. We have seen that the first generation of mite controls stop working after several years, and build up in the comb. At present there is no evidence of mite resistance to oxalic and formic acid, nor do these appear to form harmful residues. This may change, hence the need for continued research.

In these pages we have referred many times to the Red Queen Race. This is an evolutionary fact: if you are not running faster than those who are chasing you, you are falling behind. Reminds me of the two guys running to escape the grizzly bear. The one guy says "I don't think we can outrun him." They other guy says "I don't need to outrun HIM, I just need to outrun YOU."

PLB

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