Charles,

What reason is your State inspector giving for using Fumagillin as a prophylactic?  Is Nosema really rampant in the Southern part of our State?

The fact the inspector in your region is pushing hard for the use of the prophylactic does not make sense to me.

Reducing the stress on the colony by ensuring it has adequate nutrition, i.e. carbohydrate stores (honey or feeding syrup) and protein supply be it pollen or a protein supplement should help alleviate the stress.   The variety of the pollen is very important as not all pollens are equal in crude protein or the amino acids.   Some pollen sources may be high in protein, but lacking in close to half of the 10 amino acids identified as essential to the honey bee.

From what I have read, nosema will come back with a vengeance once treatment is stopped...  the same for EFB, when you stop the treatment of the antibiotic, it returns.   The (3rd edition of Honey Bee Diseases & Pests), the thought is the antibiotic enables bees which are infected with EFB to live (instead of die) and once the control stops...... 

With EFB, the major cause for the bacteria taking a foot hold is stress on the colony, especially in a strong flow.  The rapid build up throws the colony out of whack as far as nurse and house bees in proportion to foragers and the amount of brood outstrips the ability of the nurse and house bees to tend to the unsealed brood.

Sorry to go off in the EFB direction, but I think stress is a major underlying factor to both Nosema or EFB.... not to mention the immune system being compromised by the Varroa Destructor mite which is the trigger to just about everything bad which a colony must face.
 
In either case (EFB or Nosema) , nutrition and if the situation warrants it, replacing old comb and re queening should help eliminate it.

One suspected cause of the supersedure of queens which take place is due to nosema, due to the queen not getting adequately fed so she reducers her laying which causes the colony to replace her.  Or if the queen gets infected with nosema as result of being fed by an infected worker, she lays insufficient numbers of eggs and the workers supersede her.

Steve Petrilli,  Central Illinois

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