Hi Cam, thanks for the question.

I haven`t had the time to report in full the spring Oregano experiment. I
have at my blog a preliminary report (in spanish),
http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/2010/08/resultados-parciales-nutricion.html
and a draft in english that I can send to whom is interested.

Unfortunatelly I was too ambitious with this spring experiment and can not
arrive to proper conclutions.  Too many variables, too many diferent feeding
protocols, too good environmental conditions (pollen and nectar
availability), etc.

I am waiting for this autumn to retry - now on a bigger scale (half the
colonies) - the oregano versus the fumagilin. I am hoping we will have by
that time (april 2011) more information from David Wick about EOs and virus
control.

What I have learn so far, and again this are opinion and not facts (I am not
a researcher just a comertial beekeeper) is that looks like it is not the
same the behaviour of Nosema at autumn than at spring. I am guessing that
the mayor difference is the higher metabolic demand, and therefore gut work
- at early spring than late autumn.

At Autumn, either for fumagilin or for oregano, the decrease in spore count
was quite consistent (it decrease on all colonies for all treatments). At
spring on the other hand, for any of the 13 treatments the behaviour was
quite erratic.

Based on personal comunications with Gabriel Sarlo, nosema researcher from
Argentina, nurturing a colony without before treating nosema is worst than
doing nothing. He put it this way, "if your colony have nosema and you
suplement it you are feeding the parasite and not the bees".

I haven't finish my reading of the Insect Diet book of Carson (I'm on page
146), but so far I tend to believe this have to do with the way the
peritrophic membrane works.


-- 
Juanse Barros J.
APIZUR S.A.
Carrera 695
Gorbea - CHILE
+56-45-271693
08-3613310
http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/
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