Dee Lusby <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> [Nosema] Has already been confirmed going back further, and posted here too I believe; so far the mid-1980s, and is why I opened files I have, to see how further back findings in USA were. For if both types Nosema found in looking at old samples in 1980s ... then why not look further back and believe it or not it does go back even further beyond 1959 for Nosema in USA, just like with mites fwiw?

Hmm. You are now saying that nosema ceranae has been here "all along"
just like you claimed for varroa mites and of course, honey bees were
in the Americas "all along" as well. A minor point, but nosema ceranae
was not even named until 1996 and cannot be positively identified
without dna tests.

Having not looked for it and therefore having not found it, doesn't
mean that it was "probably there all along". In fact, it is entirely
plausible that nosema ceranae, whatever it is, has only recently
evolved as a branch species from another nosema species, which has
definitely been suggested here at Bee-L.

We are talking about microsporidia. These organisms have been
classified and re-classified, identified and re-identified. Once
thought to be one-celled animals, now thought to be minute fungi. The
differences between them in terms of ID are beyond the scope of the
average person. We are talking about specific regions of their dna!

However, the key point here is: what are the symptoms? Are we seeing
radically different symptoms? If so, it is a new problem *regardless*
it is a new organism or a new more virulent strain of a previously
identified one. Best not to get bogged down in taxonomy, especially if
you don't know anything about PCR.

> Microsporidia infections in hymenopteran pollinators

> Phylogenetically, Microsporidia are now considered highly specialised parasitic fungi. They are all intracellular parasites with a characteristic and unique mode of infection. Microsporidia may infect all life forms and undoubtedly, only a small fraction of the actual number of species have been characterised. In Hymenopteran pollinators, microsporidia infections have been described from four host species only: Nosema apis infecting the European honey bee, Apis mellifera; Nosema ceranae infecting the Asian honey bee, Apis cerana; Nosema bombi, infecting Bombus spp. and Antonospora scoticae infecting Andrena scoticae. N. apis and N. ceranae are cross infective between hosts. However, N. apis does not do well in A. cerana, whereas there is a worldwide process of N. ceranae replacing N. apis in A. mellifera.

> N. bombi has recently become of particular interest for conservationists, since this parasite may be distributed to areas assumed free from this parasite, thereby presumably endangering endemic bumble bee spp. Furthermore, within-genome rRNA variability in N. bombi suggests that to characterize intraspecific genetic variants in the Microsporidia based on RNA sequences is not straight forward. A. scoticae infects the fat body tissue of A. scotica and may occur with an extreme prevalence in its host.

ALSO SEE:
http://www.bwars.com/Andrena_scotica.htm

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