I remain amazed at the level of interest in 
the issue of nosema spores on combs.  The
issue may put the dancing angels out of work,
and result in pinheads going out of business.

I've got another edition of New York City's first-ever 
novice course to teach to somewhere between 40 and 70 
students (depending on the snow) tomorrow and I am trying 
to chase down a working wireless mic, so I don't have 
time to respond in full to Randy.   

I'll just repeat a key part of my prior post, as Randy's 
comments hint that he has not yet read it.  Long story 
short, while the spores certainly can and will be found 
on combs, and certainly can reinfect splits, shaken bees, 
and packages placed on that comb, there isn't a whole 
lot of value in knowing that any one box of comb has 
nosema spores.

Here's why:

: ...while someone certainly could publish data
: saying that they found so many million spores
: per gram of wax sampled, they would be unable to
: draw any firm conclusion from the data, given
: that residue levels are going to vary widely
: from colony to colony within a yard, and also
: vary widely for the same level of infection
: based upon the weather.  Bees confined to the
: hive by bad weather will deposit more feces 
: on comb than bees that can fly every day.
: 
: So, the focus is certain to remain on looking 
: at Nosema levels in samples of bees, as the 
: results would be more meaningful/useful.

So, let me stress that spores on comb, while they are 
certain to exist both in colonies that currently suffer 
from either type of Nosema AND for some time after even 
a successful treatment, would be useless as a 
screening tool for current nosema problems, and also 
useless as a metric for assessment of the level of 
infection in any colony for the specific reasons I
gave.

So, I think I clearly explained how results from any
analysis of comb for nosema would be one or all of 
three things:

a)  Statistically insignificant
b)  Clinically unimportant
c)  Useless in practical beekeeping

Given Randy's comments, I can only assume that Randy is 
working on another of his articles, and does not want to 
hear from me yet again about killjoy details like
statistical significance, clinical importance, or what
I call practical (profitable) beekeeping.

Randy did have one specific question I can answer quickly:

> how the difference between acetic acid and irradiation 
> sterilization of combs implies that N ceranae spores are 
> on the combs.  

Nope, thats not what I said - what I said is that the equal
success of acetic acid and irradiation indicated (at least
to me) that what was being killed was Nosema on combs
RATHER THAN A VIRUS SURVIVING ON THE COMBS. My reasoning
is simple:

1) Irradiation at proper flux will kill everything

2) Acetic Acid fumigation will NOT reliably kill viruses

> Both treatments kill Nosema spores, and somehow I'm not 
> understanding your reasoning.  

It is not what is killed, but is NOT reliably killed by
the acetic fumigation.  If the irradiation had worked better
than the fumigation, I would have bought into the scenario
posited where a virus would somehow survive on comb after 
turning a hive into a CCD dead-out.

For those keeping score at home, beekeeping is still illegal 
in NYC, I have hives at undisclosed locations around Manhattan,
and by teaching free novice courses, I am hand-crafting my own 
oppressed minority so we can hold rallies and such.  

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