Hi All, and especially Juanse,

Updates on N ceranae from the Calif convention

In the Pacific Northwest, N ceranae follows a seasonal occurrence, peaking
in spring and fall, similar to N apis.

However, spore counts mean little, since generally only a small percentage
of the bees in a colony are infected.

Some colonies that show extremely high spore counts from samples of 50 bees
at the entrance go on and function quite well.

Feeding pollen supplement in fall may be better than fumagillin if spore
counts are low--under 2.7M FROM BEES FROM THE INSIDE OF THE LID.  That means
that the equivalent entrance spore count would be over 5M!

Colony spore counts in Calif correlated positively with loss of colony
strength over winter, but the effect was not large.  Colonies with spore
counts of 60M (I will have to check to see if they were inside counts) lost
some strength, but did not crash!

Dr Eischen is finding spores on the comb surface, but no one has yet tested
to see if they are the source for transmission of the parasite.  He will be
running that test soon.

Still lots of questions about N ceranae--again, I should have an update
posted to my site soon--it will be called Nosema Twins 6.

Randy Oliver

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