Hi All,

I'm back from the national conventions, and have been off line for 5 days.
I will be catching up on all your private emails, and hope to update you on
the research highlights.

Re the Nosema ceranae.  I was able to discuss N ceranae  with a number of
researchers from around the world.  It is clearly a different animal than N
apis!

It's spores are more delicate (sensitive to both heat and cold), we don't
know the mode(s) of transmission, nor what treatments are best, or when.
The winners at present appear to be fumagillin still the best,  Nosevit at
new dose rate, HoneyBHealthy helps some, and then promising herbal entries
from Europe.  Number one is good nutrition, with the Hackenberg-type patty
in first place (I have a similar tested formula at my website under
Nutrition).

 Re spores on combs, Dr Eva Forsgren from Sweden gave me an important piece
of information:  the mean infective dose for N ceranae is 85 spores.
Despite posts to this List to the contrary, apparently no researcher has
taken swabs of N ceranae infected combs to see how many spores were
present.  Therefore, any recommendations to disinfect your combs for N
ceranae spores are premature.

So last week, I enlisted the help of Dave Westerveld and Jerry Bromenshenk
to check two colonies that had been infected for over 1-1/2 years--one still
alive (running 8M spores at the entrance), and one dead from mites/nosema?
(10M spores in the dead bees in the cluster).

When we swabbed combs, spores were truly rare--on the comb surface, on the
cell walls, in the beebread, in fresh collected pollen, or in the honey or
nectar.  It looks like it would be hard for a bee to get 85 spores from the
combs!

I asked researchers if anyone had tried emerging bees onto infected combs to
see if they indeed became infected with N ceranae.  None that I spoke to
had, or had heard of anyone who had.  So I plan to run that experiment this
week.

As far as N ceranae causing colony collapse, very few researchers are seeing
this.  The vast majority find it to be a rather benign parasite.  Dave
Hackenberg has had it in his operation since at least 1985, and never found
it to be a problem until CCD.  Why it explodes to high levels in some
operations is unknown--perhaps chemical suppression of the immune system,
poor nutrition, or a virus being involved.

Findings by Dr Frank Eischen indicate that at spore counts below 2-3M, you
are better off feeding protein rather than using fumagillin.  Fumagillin
sets colonies back, and large commercial beeks are realizing how much money
they wasted.

Nosevit is currently being rigorously tested in Croatia.  My own limited
trials indicate some efficacy, despite my use of a lower concentration than
the currently recommended dosage.  It is far cheaper than fumagillin, and
does not have honey contamination issues.  Because I'm hoping that it will
prove to be effective, I do not want to be biased, and am therefore going
out of my way to test it thoroughly before I give it my "seal of approval."

Randy Oliver

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