I think these pics show nosema :( Could someone expert confirm please?

[The Riviera Kid]

Thank you to all who advised on my recent post about why one of my colonies was failing to thrive. I am now totally certain that it is nosema. Until yesterday there had been no symptoms in terms of dysentery etc.

However, when I went round to see them there were the tell-tail streaks on the frames. I'd be grateful if someone could confirm the diagnosis. The colony has totally collapsed now and it looks like it has been robbed out today. There were a lot of bees around it and inside - some dead ones. There wasn't much to rob out as they didn't have much forage power but they seem to have finally been over-run.

I would be grateful for advice on how to sterilise the nuc before using it again to kill off the nosema spores.

I will melt down the drawn comb and boil the frames in caustic soda. Will that do the trick?

All the comb is 2011. There are a couple of new frames of foundation that I put in when replacing 2010 comb this spring. It seems to be untouched.

Should I scrap those frames as well? will there be any spores on such frames?

Thank you once again to all those who have offered advice.

 

[Hivemaker.]

You need to look for nosema spores under a microscope,bee poo/ dysentry does not have to automatically be nosema,in fact with ceranae there is often none at all.

You can fumigate combs with acetic acid,or even freeze them to destroy nosema ceranae spores.

 

[susbees]

Stressed. Chilled. Poor queen.

30 bees, mash up abdomens (after death naturally), add couple of drops of water and view at 400x. If you can't, find someone who can.

This weekend I saw a slide for a double brood thriving hive which has already swarmed this season....the slide was riddled with nosema....

....not mine btw.

 

[The Riviera Kid]

I appreciate that I need a microscope to get proper diagnosis, but they have dwindled to nothing, the queen stopped laying, nothing spurred her in to life. Whatever it is that's finished them off, it's terminal and I want to make sure that when I use the hive again, I have sterilised it properly. I don't want to infect any more bees.

It's almost academic re: what has killed them. It's certainly not notifiable (EFB, AFB etc.)

How long do frames have to be frozen to kill nosema and other nasties?

You need to look for nosema spores under a microscope,bee poo/ dysentry does not have to automatically be nosema,in fact with ceranae there is often none at all.

You can fumigate combs with acetic acid,or even freeze them to destroy nosema ceranae spores.

 

[Finman]

..
No reason to worry about those poo marks. As long as the queen lays normally and workers rear new bees, everything is ok.
If you worry about something, change the queen. Microscope will not solve your problem even through you find nosema spores. This is one way to handle the situation: spare queens.

If I am worried about every poo, what I find inside the hive, I could not sleep during next 100 years.

 

[Flatters]

This thread I started from October last year shows how bad the bee poo can be:
http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=14020

My understanding is that all bees have nosema anyway but when things are in balance it is kept in check. It is only when the colony is stressed in some way that the nosema takes hold. Which is probably like a lot of other bacterial infections.

I treated this colony with a feed of thymolated syrup and am pleased to say it survived the winter and seems to be thriving now.

A test on the bees would be the best check. The amount of poo you show seems to be quite small for that to be the probable cause.

 

[The Riviera Kid]

..
No reason to worry about those poo marks. As long as the queen lays normally and workers rear new bees, everything is ok.
If you worry about something, change the queen. Microscope will not solve your problem even through you find nosema spores. This is one way to handle the situation: spare queens.

If I am worried about every poo, what I find inside the hive, I could not sleep during next 100 years.

Point taken. The queen stopped laying maybe 10 days ago and they have been in decline since. I've no spare queens. Spring has come to an abrupt halt here with this on-going bad weather. No opportunities to raise new queens yet. I am the local swarm public liaison for our association and usually, by this time of year, the phone is ringing itself to death with calls about swarm... but so far in 2012, not a single call yet.

This thread I started from October last year shows how bad the bee poo can be:
http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=14020

My understanding is that all bees have nosema anyway but when things are in balance it is kept in check. It is only when the colony is stressed in some way that the nosema takes hold. Which is probably like a lot of other bacterial infections.

I treated this colony with a feed of thymolated syrup and am pleased to say it survived the winter and seems to be thriving now.

A test on the bees would be the best check. The amount of poo you show seems to be quite small for that to be the probable cause.

Your hive looks worse than mine Flatters. I suspect that there is so little poo in mine because they never really got going after winter. The colony was small, though they had plenty of stores etc. but have just faded away. They were still tranquil and the queen is still there to see,but there are not enough of them left to fill a tea cup.

I put the lack of progress down to the weather - 3 of my 4 colonies were a bit slow off the blocks this year. But as the other two caught up the leader, this one just went totally downhill.

I think that I am going to fumigate with acetic acid to be sure.

I asked other beekeepers locally about this advice from Hivemaker:

or even freeze them to destroy nosema ceranae spores.

The consensus seemed to be that freezing doesn't kill the spores...

 

[Hivemaker.]

I asked other beekeepers locally about this advice from Hivemaker:



The consensus seemed to be that freezing doesn't kill the spores...

The concensus of the local beekeepers must be correct then,and the research is wrong.
Does acetic acid kill spores in encapsulated pollen and honey.

 

[alanf]

The consensus seemed to be that freezing doesn't kill the spores...

Hivemaker specifically wrote freezing for Nosema ceranae. There is evidence that a week in the freezer will reduce ceranae effectiveness, but it won't be anything like as effective against Nosema apis.

https://bienenkunde.uni-hohenheim.de/uploads/media/Nosema_ceranae_in_European_honey_bees__Fries.PDF

 

[Hivemaker.]

Some more details

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/nosema-ceranae-kiss-of-death-or-much-ado-about-nothing/

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/the-nosema-twins-part-5-alternative-treatments/

 

[The Riviera Kid]

The concensus of the local beekeepers must be correct then,and the research is wrong.
Does acetic acid kill spores in encapsulated pollen and honey.

Hivemaker, I meant no offence with what I posted.

I have not had to deal with nosema before and half the webpages I looked at said freezing didn't kill it and others said that it did, or, in the case of one of the links you showed (which were among those I'd looked at) only "reduce the viability" of spores.

One of the scientificbeekeeping pages referenced discusses work that suggests N. Apis may even be enhanced by freezing!!

A very interesting additional observation by Fries was that N. apis spores actually appear to become even more infective after exposure to freezing

So with such a mixed picture, I decided to ask people locally how they'd dealt with it and asked about freezing in particular.

As for how well acetic acid works on pollen and honey, I don't know!! That is why I am asking these questions!!