Chris:
> Fumidil does not prevent Nosema, it merely prevents it multiplying where
it  is present and when the bees are consuming stores with this anti-biotic.
It  does nothing to deal with the millions of persistent spores
contaminating  the combs and will be activated in the guts of bees as the
colony expands in  the spring and worker bees use their tongues to clean
comb.

Hope we can agree to disagree here Chris! I test many bees for myself and
others each year for nosema. The feeding of fumidil-B stops nosema dead in
its tracks as proven by late spring and summer testing I have done on bees.

In hives of beekeepers which do not ever feed Fumidil-B I can always find
nosema but many times the nosema remains at a level at which the beekeeper
never misses the lost honey production or sees nosema as a possible cause of
poor wintering. Actually certain strains of bees seem to do just fine with
low levels of nosema.

Research shows that bees *heavily infected* with nosema die about two weeks
earlier than normal. The last two weeks of the bees life is spent as a
forager.

Richard Taylor used to say he never treated for nosema in the bee magazines.
He felt the losses in honey crop did not make up for the cost for
Fumidil -B, labor & syrup. Then one spring he lost most his bees. When
checked the problem was found to be a extremely high nosema problem. I
always liked the honesty of Richard Taylor. Richard wrote about his deadouts
and how they could have been prevented by monitoring for nosema and
treating.

*Stress* causes nosema to many times raise its ugly head from my experience.
I  do not automatically treat spring and fall for nosema but do monitor
nosema levels in my yards.

Everytime I can do IPM and skip a treatment or feeding I have helped my
bottom line. I would never skip a treatment I thought was needed to maintain
health in my hives.

Chris said:
> If you use Fumidil it should be as part of a programme of rigorous comb
renewal and fumigation with 80% acetic acid which will kill many disease
organisms as well as rapidly removing the skin from your fingers. Handle
with care.
> It breaks down to CO2 and water I believe.

I do not know of even one U.S. beekeeper which practices the above radical
method for *nosema*!. I certainly am not concerned enough about nosema to go
to the above extremes. What do others on the list think?

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

"A discussion should always present both sides! What kind of discussion
would it be if we always agreed?"

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