>>Can you do a Bailey Frame Change and still produce a normal crop?

>As I see it the choice is between an infected colony (which could well die) 
and a colony from which the majority of spores has been removed.

Reports on the effects and eventual resolution of a nosema episode are all 
over the map.

Some say it has little real effect on the performance of hives and will resolve 
itself if conditions are agreeable, others claim it is deadly and a one-way trip 
to hive death.

Such a divergence of opinion says to me that nosema is not the core problem, 
but merely the most easily identifiable one in situations where nosema seems 
to be destroying hives.  

Also, as someone pointed out recently, nosema, like mites, causes punctures 
in the bees in ways that opens them to invasion by many different pathogens.

My advice, and it is contrary to most I hear, so take it for what it is worth, is 
not to worry about decontaminating equipment, but rather strengthen the 
bees against disease and look to other measures like

1.) improved conditions (hive strength, shelter, reduced beekeeper 
manipulations, etc.) and 

2.) give them an advantage by requeening with superior, hardy, hygienic stock 
and 

3.) by providing guaranteed nutrition at all times by ensuring the hives have at 
least enough feed in frames or feeders to last several weeks and 

4.) by providing protein supplement where there is any reason to suspect 
monoculture or poor quailty pollen forage could be providing less than idea 
amino acid balance.

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