>  Keep in mind last winter/spring we did not have a week of nice weather
> for bees' cleansing flight. Under out climate we are blessed in certain
> years we have a week late February early march. During this special week
> temp is 15 C or more and bees can fly. If it happens it will be great for
> the bees to go out and defecate. This type of observations and beekeeping
> reports trigged us to investigate in details what is going one. By the way
> Canadian rely on fumagillin to get them through winter and reduce nosema
> impacts on winter kill.
>

George Imire preached about low ash honey going into the winter so
cleansing flights were less necessary in mid winter. Many fall nectar
sources are high ash so they are death for cold winter overwintering. I use
George's methods to have as low ash as possible for winter stores and have
never used Fumidil. I wonder if the honey in the wintering colonies in
Canada are high ash?

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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