Tracy,

Did you see a lot of yeast cells when you undertook the microscopic examination of Etienne Tardiff’s samples?

I note that Randy Oliver says he commonly finds “yeast cells in dead winter bees and in dysentery samples.”

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/sick-bees-part-13-simple-microscopy-of-nosema/

My entomologist buddy here reports that when he was looking at bee guts last spring in samples from one of my neighbouring beekeepers he noticed there was a lot of yeast in the samples. “Since the fermentation of honey is caused mostly by the growth of yeasts, the observations of lots of yeasts in [name’s] sample makes sense now.  It’s the yeast that causes the dysentery. I guess Nosema is a secondary infection.”

The beek with a lot of yeast in his samples also had high Nosema spore counts: ~2.3 - ~2.5 million per bee.

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