1. Nosema belongs to a group of highly specialized fungi. It only effects adult bees, the most susceptible being the worker bees. The infection begins when bees ingest Nosema spores. Once ingested the spores uncurl a long straw-like polar filament which penetrates and infects outer gut cells
2. To diagnose Noseama, collect 10-25 bees, that are older than 8 days old, from the hive entrance of a number of colonies. Total sample size should be about 100 bees. You can then either send them away to be examined or examine them yourself through a microscope.
3. Once Nosema has been diagnosed, you can treat it by disinfecting the comb, or through the use of medication. Comb can be disinfected by electron-beam irradiation. The only medication registered for the control of Nosema is Fumagillin.
Fumagillin is the only registered medication to treat Nosema. Are there any other unregistered home remedies that people claim to help Nosema?
There are a few remedies:
ReplyDeleteFrom wikipedia: HoneyBHealthy, ApiHerb, Vita Feed Gold, Vitafeed Green, Nozevit, and possibly thymol
Also, in vancouver we often send our hives to an ionotron which zaps them with gamma rays to kill all of the spores.