Just to update those that are following my amoeba/nosema saga.

The queen I transferred about a month ago from the sick colony (now dead) to a queenless colony is laying a storm. She has about about 3 frames of brood (mixed) spread out over 5 frames. She seems fit and is very active and shows no signs of having any issues. This likely confirms that the queens may not always be infected and that the issue lies with the winter/nurse bees unable to perform their nursing tasks (fail to become nurse bees).

I also received 99.5% Acetic Acid yesterday that I made into a 85% solution. I setup a couple of boxes for fumigation for the next 10 days. According to prior research, this should help reduce and hopefully eliminate the amoeba/Nosema issue and finally put it to bed. The 20 frames from the colony in question were scrapped for wax (ie candles and other non-bee related use) and thrown out. 

Cysts of M. mellificae on combs were killed as readily as spores of N. apr's by vapour of acetic acid, but fumagijlin did not affect the development of M.mellificae in infected bees (Bailey, 1955d).

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html