Jerry said: > My understanding of the drench method was that bees would get a coating - > I'd limit that to a spray or mist, or I've heard of dribbling it into the > colony - but the point of the drench was that the bees have no choice > regards > taking the medicine, they HAVE to clean it off themselves. The above is basically the drench method as proposed by the maker of fumigillin . I have used the drench many times and have followed the directions of Dr. Eric Mussen most of the time. The drench has worked in about 50% of cases to slowly (very slowly ) turn a percentage of the hives off feed around. I still do not understand exactly why the bee can take the feed by licking off each other but can't take syrup out of a feeder by licking. My friend Randy Oliver suggested I try to save hives with high nosema ceranae problems so I did experiments. A very human idea but is not an idea I embrace today but many ways to keep bees. Each hive unit is an investment in time and money. A recovering hive is dwelling in a spot on a skid a productive hive should be. In a commercial setting once the bees go off feed my current policy is to depopulate the hive (as the bees are most often carrying high spore loads. Maybe as high as 5 million spores and dr. Mussen recommends treatment with samples of 1 million spores) and shaking out those bees to drift into other colonies is a problem *in my opinion*. I then bring all the equipment in to kill the nosema ceranae spores before placing new bees on the comb. My method is based on several years of experimentation with nosema ceranae. Using the above method I have eliminated nosema ceranae issues from my bees. I have no need to drench now and only feed fumidil in syrup when I feel the need when random checks show spore counts rising. From the notes on nosema ceranae from the presentation given by Dr. Mussen at the Missouri State beekeepers meeting: N. Ceranae life cycle: Spores swallowed by bees Go to the bee midgut reproduces vegetatively cells form spores Host cells infest midgut in 4-7 days, bees die in about 2 cycles (1-2 weeks) which is about half the time of nosema apis. effects on individual bees: inhibits ability of midgut digestion REDUCES LIFE EXPECTANCY OF ADULT WORKERS 22-44% WORKERS "AGE" The above was taken directly from the slides of the power point presentation of Dr. Eric Mussen. As a honey producer losing my forager bees last two weeks of foraging is a big deal. The same was true of nosema apis but its hard to really compare nosema apis to nosema ceranae as very different in the way nosema ceranae causes problems for bees. In fact nosema cerane is similar to nosema vespula (wasp nosema ) than nosema apis. The amount of influence nosema ceranae had on CCD is often discussed but still nosema ceranae was found in all the CCD deadouts. Little discussion on BEE-L about KBV which was also found in all the CCD samples. KBV by itself is a known killer of bees. Was reported by the Canadians as the sole cause of thousands of dead hives in the Peace River area of Canada a few years ago. IAPV is said to kill hives by itself in studies in Israel and was first blamed as the single cause for CCD but was not found in all the CCd samples as was nosema ceranae and KBV. As the CCD discussion drifts from area to area we must stick with the known facts. Also from the Dr. Mussen CCD discussion slides: ( remember I am only giving information from the presentation) 1975 same pattern of loss was seen, called disappearing disease CCD is a resultant state of a colony. symptoms; 1. Most of the adult bees have flown away. 2.Queen and few young workers remain, 3.Some.too large amounts of brood may be left to die 4.Honey & pollen stores often abundant 5. abandoned comb seem not attractive to normal hive pests. The above is the way Dr. Mussen explained the CCD symptoms. he listed what we are discussing last in his list of symptoms. To sum up if you control mites and nosema ceranae in your bees then you will in my opinion see no parasitic mite syndrome (PMS) and you will *in my opinion* see plenty of old forager bees in your hives. I do! bob *********************************************** 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