susbees
Queen Bee
- Joined
- May 7, 2010
- Messages
- 3,231
- Reaction score
- 2
- Location
- Welsh Marches, by Montgomery
- Hive Type
- Commercial
- Number of Hives
- 35ish
...your bees.
They had a rotten wet summer, limited proper stores to winter on (sugar isn't real food), long winter, late pollen......and if they are a shadow of their pre-winter selves they likely have bad Nosema.
Nosema ceranae is not linked with dysentery. It is less obvious. Dysentery isn't necessarily linked to Nosema apis either.
Finally got into the first colonies today. Changed some floors and found a tiny patch of dysentery on a frame of a weak Q+ colony. Under the scope: spores are very heavy. The adjacent very strong hive was tanking in willow and other pollens - floor sample still showed some Nosema in the bees.
Wednesday, I'll be scoping samples from the 50% weakest colonies. Then it'll be a big juggle on our drawn comb supplies for coddled Baileys of the bee kind.
Get your bees checked...
They had a rotten wet summer, limited proper stores to winter on (sugar isn't real food), long winter, late pollen......and if they are a shadow of their pre-winter selves they likely have bad Nosema.
Nosema ceranae is not linked with dysentery. It is less obvious. Dysentery isn't necessarily linked to Nosema apis either.
Finally got into the first colonies today. Changed some floors and found a tiny patch of dysentery on a frame of a weak Q+ colony. Under the scope: spores are very heavy. The adjacent very strong hive was tanking in willow and other pollens - floor sample still showed some Nosema in the bees.
Wednesday, I'll be scoping samples from the 50% weakest colonies. Then it'll be a big juggle on our drawn comb supplies for coddled Baileys of the bee kind.
Get your bees checked...