I said:
>> The bad news is that protozoa are just plain hard to see.
>> He mentioned "phase contrast", a microscope feature that is
>> well beyond the budget of a beekeeper.
And Peter said:
> That is certainly news to me, I use a fairly basic, elderly
> microscope and can see nosema and amoeba easily.
That's interesting.
Do you use a stain?
How do you prepare your samples?
What sort of light source are you using?
Any other hints, tips, or clues you can offer?
Perhaps decades of looking at computer screens for long hours
every day have fried my eyes, but I must admit to having difficulty
locating Nosema protozoa, a "transparent" object in a very crowded
field of other "transparent" objects, and I am more experienced than
many in using a microscope, which may itself have contributed to my
growing need for glasses, contacts, or laser surgery.
>> Maybe I don't have a nosema problem, but I'm sure as heck
>> gonna look before it gets too cold to feed some Fumadil.
> Keeping the treadmill turning?
That question is not merely misleading, but preposterous,
and you know it. :)
The concept of the "treadmill" does not apply to Fumadil and
Nosema. It is not like the protozoa are going to develop
"resistance", now is it? :)
In regard to the general dismissal of any/all treatment (even
treatment based upon rigorous IPM methods) of any/all problems
as "the treadmill", I feel obligated to point out the obvious -
we have exactly two problems (varroa and AFB) that have developed
"resistance" of any sort. I know of no reports of "resistance"
in ANY OTHER pest or disease.
I hear of many beekeepers who think that they have (all by
themselves) "bred from the survivors", and ended up with bees
resistant to varroa. Surprisingly, the more sophisticated
and intensive efforts of both commercial bee breeders and
researchers in this area have not resulted in similar claims.
Even more surprising, many of the beekeepers who claim to have
developed bees resistant to varroa never seem to admit to loosing
hives to any OTHER problems. They claim "no losses", not even
losing an occasional hive to a failed queen. This is hard to believe.
It follows that either:
a) Individual beekeepers are sitting on a gold mine, and
should contact both researchers and bee breeders ASAP
so that they can start to live in the manner to which
they would like to become accustomed, and do a great
service to the entire worldwide beekeeping community.
b) Individual beekeepers are fooling themselves, and do not
have any actual resistance in their bees.
Until such time as I see some verified results that prompt
researchers and/or breeders to make the claims that they
would certainly love to make, I will continue to both test
and treat problems and keep my bees alive. Even when such
"resistant" bees are offered, I would tend to continue to
test for quite some time before I was willing to bet my
colonies to save a few pennies.
I view some of the more vocal proponents of "breeding from
the survivors" as refugees from the monastery of the monks
in the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". They chant,
they hit themselves in the head with a board, and chant some more.
"Pie Iesu domine,
Dona eis requiem" (WHAP!)
(The curse of a classical education is that you are stared at
you when are the only one laughing at some points in some films.)
The Latin translates to "Merciful lord Jesus, Grant them rest"
which I feel is a highly appropriate prayer for bees that are
abandoned by their owner and left to cope as best they can with
the whims of disease and attacks of pests.
I'm a beeKEEPER. I'm gonna do what I can to KEEP the bees.
That's not a treadmill. A "treadmill" is when I use even
more nasty chemicals because less nasty ones have stopped
working.
As I have stated before, I will throw a large party where
guests will roast frankfurters and marshmallows over the
bonfires of my burning woodenware before I will use any
form of organophosphate. As luck would have it, it appears
that I can start to alternate between Apistan and Api-Life
for varroa treatments, and use the "sucrose octante" for
colonies that start to go all pear-shaped during the flows.
In the good news area, work discussed on this mailing list has
"proven" that multiple lines of commercially-available bees are
tracheal mite resistant, but no one seems to have bothered to
promote this advantage, and researchers are apparently unwilling
to name names in public. My only conclusion here is that no one
in the "bee business" can be accused of doing any actual "marketing".
> Incidentally, Fumadil is no longer available in the UK.
I did not know that. Neither apparently do some bee supply
houses. Thorne http://www.thorne.co.uk and Bees Online
http://www.bees-online.co.uk both still list the product
in their online catalogs. What's up with that?
...So what would you use in the UK to treat a case of Nosema
if you were so inclined?
jim
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