Treating nosema with garlic !?

[Brosville]

Garlic is wonderfully useful, and a major component of a "mediterranean diet", well-known to be particularly healthy - most animals benefit from it both as a food and as a medicine, so I reckon the original poster's report of it being used successfully for treatment of nosema should be taken seriously, and I'd be very interested to hear further on it - common sense says that it may well work!

 

[Storm™]

I did quite a bit of research into it at the time.
Garlic is OK for dogs and cats and there are tablets formulated for both species.
Denes, for example, make them.

Well just to be clear on this although slightly off topic Garlic is NOT ok for your dog. However you can as you say get supplements. What's key is the dose +plus benefits of garlic compared to overdose and poisoning your dog. As all dogs metabolism/weight is different and that denotes dose as per instructions it's not worth the risk unless the dose is so low as to constitute a homeopathetic medicine. But it's your choice versus confidence in your findings. Onions kill and garlic ain't that much better and according to this article it is even worse for cats causing blood problems in both. But like I said it's your choice:

More here and no doubt elsewhere - http://tinyurl.com/7hqnedc

 

[Brosville]

If you read the article carefully it mutters about "the potential to...", and no dogs came to any harm from the tests - if you put that up against the vast numbers of people who use garlic for their pets successfully and safely, I would suggest it's alarmist tosh! I'm quite sure you could remove everything from any diet on the grounds of "has the potential to" - drink too much water you can end up dead, but it's hardly sensible to suggest you only have it as a homoeopathic potency!
The vast body of articles on the subject suggest that only extraordinarily large doses have the potential for harm in dogs........ so I shall continue using it for my dogs and chooks when necessary (none of whom have come to the slightest harm from it!)

 

[Storm™]

if you put that up against the vast numbers of people who use garlic for their pets successfully and safely, I would suggest it's alarmist tosh!

hmmm being a bit liberal there with the wording. Potential to cause life threatening anaemia rather than potential to... implying "its all fiiiine", with no clarifying statement so diluting the context there brossy. And whilst they didnt come to harm ~

American Journal of Veterinary Research in November 2000. Four dogs were given measured amounts of garlic and four dogs received none. After only seven days, blood tests on the dogs taking garlic revealed decreased levels in hemoglobin, hematocrit, and red blood cell values. Heinz body formation, an increase in erythrocyte-reduced glutathione concentration, and eccentrocytes were also detected, although none of the dogs developed hemolytic anemia.

Veterinarians conducting the study concluded that garlic has the potential to cause hemolytic anemia and that food containing garlic should not be given to dogs.

Mutterings? ~ no. Alarmist tosh? ~ well not really. I would say that its a fairly specific statement there. And its unusual for you to advocate pumping things full of chemicals when not required isnt it, natural or otherwise.

 

[Hivemaker.]

These natural substances are always worth further investigation,garlic is apparently rich in selenium and sulphur,and feeding sulphur is mentioned as a sort of treatment against nosema in some old bee books,gives the bees the runs, and purges them of nosema spores apparently. Selenium is toxic to bees according to the link below,but as Bros mentions,so are most things in a high enough dose.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3220374...es-face-another-killer-selenium/#.TtJgNnKCThk

Garlic is stocked by equine suppliers as a feed supplement as well.

 

[Brosville]

http://denes.co.uk/health/licensed_herbal_medicines.php

http://denes.co.uk/health/product/43/garlic_tablets

http://denes.co.uk/health/product/67/liquid_garlic

As I said, the family has used it themselves, I've used it on dogs and chooks with great success, my daughter uses it on her horses, and the advantages have always been apparent...... and you don't get "VMD" approval easily!

ps, if people don't already know it, many "spot on" flea treatments are our old friends neonicotinoids.....

 

[Black Comb]

Ken Pickles uses this and he outlined the method when he gave a talk to our association.
For varroa treatment he advocates a handful of wild garlic leaves crushed and left on the top of the frames in the spring. In the autumn he digs up 5 or 6 wild garlic bulbs and washes then crushes them, placing on top of the frames above the brood nest.

See his book
[ame]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beekeeping-Wharfedale-Ken-Pickles/dp/1904846564/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322411877&sr=8-1[/ame]

 

[Nic Rhodes]

anyone in your association try it Peter?

 

[Black Comb]

I'll ask at the next meeting.
I meant to try it this autumn but forgot.

 

[LeaBaileyBees]

This thread caught my interest so I googled a few words which lead me to the BBKA 2009 Honey Bee Health proposals for spending the £10m government funding from around that time. Search for 'garlic' and you'll find a proposal for Alternative Nosema Treatments.

Does anyone know if this project (of the many) got the go-ahead?

 

[Finman]

Garlic is highly effective for many uses, has anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal properties, and may well work against Nosema.
If it had been "discovered" by a pharmaceutical company, and they could get a patent on it there'd be claims of a "wonderdrug" - as there is no money to be made.........
There is a product called "Nopex" available, which contains allicin (one of garlic's main constituents) sold for poultry use - we've used it on our chooks, and "it does what it says on the tin" - http://www.mantel-farm.co.uk/7.html

not to mention antiwomen, antifriends, antibussload.


My grandmo used allways camphor, what ever the faint or disease was
she put it one droplet onto the sugarbit.

She was born about 1860 and died at the age of 93. She was right.

The Best recipe to use garlic on garlic festifals.
reporter:
- would you give a good garlic recipe now to audiance?
- Yes. A bottle of vodka and 20 crushed garlic nails into bottle. Then let is stay 6 months.
- What is good in that ?
- You may get an old boost taste into your mouth at the very beginning of festival.

.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

I believe that garlic came to this country with the Romans. It was used as a cure for athletes foot; it's antifungal properties meant that it could be placed between the toes and remove the fungus.

 

[Winker]

I believe that garlic came to this country with the Romans. It was used as a cure for athletes foot; it's antifungal properties meant that it could be placed between the toes and remove the fungus.

Roman Feet after garlic treatment:

 

[BeeJayBee]

These natural substances are always worth further investigation,garlic is apparently rich in selenium and sulphur,and feeding sulphur is mentioned as a sort of treatment against nosema in some old bee books,gives the bees the runs, and purges them of nosema spores apparently.

I've seen it suggested that bee colonies living in old chimneys might survive for many years because they get some protection from the sulphur in old soot deposits in the flues.

Ken Pickles uses this and he outlined the method when he gave a talk to our association.
For varroa treatment he advocates a handful of wild garlic leaves crushed and left on the top of the frames in the spring. In the autumn he digs up 5 or 6 wild garlic bulbs and washes then crushes them, placing on top of the frames above the brood nest.

It makes me wonder if bees foraging on fields growing onions for seed, or in old orchards and woodland full of wild garlic, have less varroa than those elsewhere.

From Lincolnshire Beekeepers, 2009 http://www. bbka. org. uk / local / lincolnshire / articles / umbrellas-icing-sugar-and-garlic. shtml
... a fascinating account by one beekeeper of his experiments with icing sugar and garlic powder to control varroa. The results are being closely monitored.

I can't find any follow up, maybe somebody from Lincolnshire knows the results?

 

[djg]

And does the honey "take" a hint of garlic, too ?

 

[Black Comb]

No he specifically said it does not.

I have recently placed a hive in a wood with lots of wild garlic around so in a couple of years might have some feedback.

 

[Erichalfbee]

wood with lots of wild garlic around

There's absolutely masses around where I live, the hedgerows reek in the springtime but I must admit I have never seen a bee on it.

 

[Erichalfbee]

http://denes.co.uk/health/licensed_herbal_medicines.php

http://denes.co.uk/health/product/43/garlic_tablets

http://denes.co.uk/health/product/67/liquid_garlic

As I said, the family has used it themselves, I've used it on dogs and chooks with great success, my daughter uses it on her horses, and the advantages have always been apparent...... and you don't get "VMD" approval easily!

ps, if people don't already know it, many "spot on" flea treatments are our old friends neonicotinoids.....

I go with Brosville here. I never saw one case of illness attributed to ingestion of garlic in thirty years of practice. I don't see Denes being sued for poisoning pets either.

 

[greatbritishhoney]

An experienced beekeeper was testing his bees for nosema and kindly took me along on Friday to show me how to do it. He has been trialling a nosema treatment based on garlic that he got from some Czech friends of his. It seemed to work. All of the treated hives tested negative. The highly infested images I just posted in the microscopy section came from one of the colonies before testing (They have been in his freezer for a year). We could not find a single spore after treatment.

Has anyone heard of using garlic for nosema?

(If done at the wrong time of year it could make for interesting honey. Possibly more tasty than thymol honey?)

Paul

How was the garlic applied to the hive?
Is it a product containing garlic or a home-made preparation?

 

[victor meldrew]

There's absolutely masses around where I live, the hedgerows reek in the springtime but I must admit I have never seen a bee on it.

Hence the common name around these parts 'Stinking lily'
VM