Nosema ceranae

[lindsay s]

Here's a link to a Scottish Government press release. I'm sorry I don't know anything about this disease.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Rele...11/09/23123701

[gavin]

Many thanks Lindsay, very interesting. At the recent Convention Giles Budge told us a lot about the disease. It is widely reported in England now and, unlike the established Nosema apis, shows signs of being particularly prevalent where bees have been imported. There are hints from the US that either or both Nosemas are associated - with other factors - with CCD but Nc can also be present without serious effect.

PS
And that possible link with importation suggests that looking at Orkney samples would be interesting.

[Jimbo]

After the Conference last saturday I thought I would look up some information on Nosema and came across this Scientific paper. I am unable to put in a link but you can google it. The title is The Impact of Nosema apis Z Infestation of Honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) Colonies after using Different Treatment Methods and their Effects on the Population Levels of Workers and Honey Production on Consecutive Years.
Pakistan Journal of Biological Sciences 8 (8) 1142-1145,2005
Interesting reading and if the results are correct it may be time to add Thymol to your winter sugar feed.
Any comments?

[AlexJ]

Lindsay,

This American site http://www.extension.org/bee_health

contains some useful information.

Information articles under the heading 'Honey Bee Health' include, Microsporidia/Effects of Nosema and Nosema Ceranae which you might find useful.

Alex

[Jimbo]

Here is the link to the earlier post about the Nosema paper http://www.docsdrive.com/pdfs/ansine.../1142-1145.pdf

[The Drone Ranger]

Nosema Cerana was the subject of an article in The Dundee Courier the other day so now I am worried

[Jimbo]

I think beekeepers need to start taking Nosema a bit more serious. After the survey done in England and Wales and reported at the SBA conference. it looks Nosema Cerana was quite widespread. The results reported in the scientific paper I posted earlier showed that a therapeutic treatment of thymol in the sugar winter feed has a benificial effect over a number of years. It increased the life of the bees, gave better winter survival, increased honey yield and reduced the amount of Nosema present in the colony. I intend to count my nosema spores in my colonies over the next few weeks just to see how infected my hives are. I am not able to distinguish between Nosema apis and Nosema cerana but I would assume Fumidil or Thymol will treat both types.

[marion.orca]

This may be a silly question - but how exactly are you able to count spores, and how are you able to recognise them ? [ that's 2 questions ! ]

[Jimbo]

There is a standard method. Basically you take a sample of bees eg 25 or 50. Remove the abdomen. Add 0.5ml water for each bee eg 12.5ml for 25 or 25.0ml for 50. Grind in a mortar and pestle. Take a small sample and count on a Haemocytometer slide. Count the spores under a microscope at mag 400 from 5 ruled squares. Multiply the answer by if I remember correctly by 25,000 to give the number of spores per million per bee. The spores look like little oval shapes but smaller in length than rice. Less than 2 million spores per bee in a colony could be accepted as a healthy level. Over 5 million would be a moderate level. Over 10 million considered a high infestation. If you can't get access to a haemocytometer you can use a microscope slide but would need to work out what a low, medium and high level is in the microscope field of view.

[gavin]

It is usually either there in quantity or not at all in my experience. I couldn't find it in my bees nor in samples of colonies that died overwinter in my area but did find it in a few samples of dead bees sent to me from elsewhere in Scotland. I just mashed abdomens in a small quantity of water and looked at the resulting liquid using a microscope slide. The spores are highly refractive so they really stand out. You usually also see pollen from some of the plants the bees were foraging on.

G.