Tom Webster, Heat and Nosema

I heard Tom Webster speak on Wednesday night at the local bee club meeting. Dr. Webster is at Kentucky State University and focuses his research on nosema.

He had slides to show how nosema lives as a parasite in the bee's gut. The spore of nosema sends out a tube which finds purchase in the wall of the bee gut lining and embeds itself. Nosema really messes up the bee's digestion then and eventually, if nosema gets the best of her, she dies from lack of nutrition since her digestive system is compromised.

I had a hive which is one of my survivor hives who appeared to have nosema over the winter. When the bees went on cleansing flights, the hive was covered with brown streaks of bee feces. I was sure they would die since I was not treating with anything. But when spring came, the hive has survived and is making honey like crazy as we speak.

Dr. Webster said that without lab proof, there's not a sure diagnosis and sometimes bees get diarrhea for other reasons, but also the presence of diarrhea/nosema does not always mean the hive will die.

Essentially he said the best way to address nosema is to get rid of old wax. He didn't say keep old comb for five years like UGA is now saying. He said GET RID OF OLD WAX.

I raised my hand and said that I have been cutting out the old wax and then dipping the frames in boiling water for 1 minute. When the frame is pulled out of the stewpot, the thin layer of melted wax on the top of the water coats the frame as it comes out. I wanted to know if that wax would still contain microbes for nosema.

Interestingly Dr. Webster said that heat will kill microbes so the boiling water should do them in, while freezing frames would just suspend the microbe. Once removed from the freezer and returned to room temperature, the nosema microbe would be alive and happy.

Since we often recommend freezing cut comb and chunk honey to kill wax moth eggs which might be in the wax, I found that really interesting.

Cold will kill eggs of bugs but will not kill microbes.

Heat kills.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note: Feedback I got from a reader makes me want to write a little clarification as an addendum to this post:

When you make cut comb honey or chunk honey, you always freeze it so that your friend/customer doesn't open the jar or box to find wax moth larvae floating in their honey. Freezing the product kills the insect eggs. Obviously you can't heat either of these products or all the wax would be melted.

However, when you are cleaning frames, boiling water kills everything in the wax: wax moths, eggs of whatever might have been in the comb (roaches, wax moths, SHB), and microbes for nosema.

Warm Temps Equal Flying Bees

The temperature is milder today and the bees are flying.

I have three live hives in my backyard which means I lost two over the winter.  One was the tiny hive we moved from Jeff's yard that never really got off the ground.  The other was the Sebastian hive which made good honey and were surprisingly strong.   I'll open that hive soon to see if I can determine what was wrong.

The three who are vigorously flying and bringing in pollen (from where?) are the nuc hive that is going great guns, the Northlake swarm hive - now entering its third season, and the Va Hi Swarm that I caught just up the street from my house during last year's swarm season.

The Va Hi swarm hive looks like they have nosema:

You can see all the bee feces around the entrance.  Still there are tons of bees coming and going.  It's my most vigorous hive.  We didn't harvest from this hive and also didn't consolidate the boxes going into winter (I know, bad beekeeper...) but they are alive and surviving so far.

In Atlanta you never can tell.  We can have snow as late as mid March.  Last year around Valentine's Day we had the worst snow jam ever, ever, ever with really cold temperatures, so who knows what will happen.

There are a lot of dead bees just outside the hive with all of my hives.  This is natural in that the dead accumulate inside when the bees can't fly because it's too cold, but as soon as it warms up, they carry out the dead.

You can see dead bodies on the ground in the above photo.

The Northlake hive is bringing in the pollen as well as the nuc hive.  I saw three bees on several occasions while I watched the nuc hive practically fall over each other trying to make the entrance.

The bees that were coming in carried heavy pollen loads.

These kinds of days make me feel hopeful for the spring!

Stonehurst Place Bees Participate in UGA Research

Today our bustling hives at Stonehurst Place began participation in a research project at UGA run by Victor O. Victor came by to collect a sample of about 300 bees from the hives.  His research is about IPM hive management.  I'll know more about it as the project goes forward.  Right now, we provide a bee sample.  Later I have to answer about a 45 minute questionnaire about IPM (Integrated Pest management).

Before he came, I opened the top (in my business clothes with no bee stuff - I borrowed Caroline, the innkeeper's, veil and a hive tool). I could see that they were full and built out in the second box so I added a third box to each hive.

The first hive was fine - after all, I only took off the inner cover and added the box - no other interference. However hive two took revenge and I got stings between my thumb and fingers on my right hand and in the palm of my left hand.



Victor planned to take bees from a honey frame so he lifted the first frame out of the second box.



He used an alcohol-filled cup as a sample collector. There are so many bees in this hive that he was able to collect all 300 bees from this frame alone.

These sample bees will be tested for nosema and a few other diseases.  He is interested in beekeepers like me who use no poison in their hives.



Isn't their comb pretty? This frame even looks like I failed to wax in a starter strip!



In the end around 300 bees gave their lives to alcohol and science and Victor went on his way. Part of the research includes my participation in taking about a 45 minute survey and then allowing a second collection later on - I think at the end of the summer.



To respond to the comment below, I don't know any more about his research than was in his letter sent to request participation.  I'm certainly willing to contribute to any effort to learn more about honey bee health and since I practice a no-chemical IPM approach, I'd love to know about the health of my bees (or lack thereof) as a result.  Here's what he wrote:

"As part of our involvement in the Coordinated Agricultural Project (CAP) http://www.beeccdcap.uga.edu/, the UGA bee lab is looking to collect data on the use of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in Georgia and its effects on honey bee health. Based on the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association’s (MABA) reputation as a key proponent of bees, we would like to offer MABA members the opportunity to participate in this research. We are looking for 15 highly committed volunteers. Participants will be asked to participate in an annual on-line survey reporting their management practices and measures of hive productivity and submit biennial bee samples for pathogen analysis. In addition to the benefit of having healthier bees, involvement in this project could be used to satisfy subspecialty requirements in the UGA/Young Harris College (YHC) Master Beekeeper Program. We will begin the first phase of this project in April.  Please respond to this e-mail and let us know if you will be able to assist us by participating in this research. Thank you in advance for your invaluable help in this initiative."

Nosema or no nosema?

In the winter cluster, the bees do not relieve themselves. On a warm day, they finally can fly and they are desperate to get rid of their bodily waste. This hive, Mellona, has a splatter of diarrhea on the front just above the entrance after a warm day for the bees. I should note that the warm day came after a number of below freezing days in a row.

One worry I might have is that the bees may have nosema. Cindy Bee (really her name) a local bee authority and friend/mentor of mine told me not to worry about it. She sees it most winters and simply cleans the area of the hive box, but doesn't do anything for the bees. They get over it naturally.

In an old post from 2003 on Beesource, Michael Bush said, "How do you know they have nosema?" Diarrhea is not necessarily nosema. There are a lot of things that give them transient diarrhea. Just because you get the runs for the day does not mean you are dying of giardia."

Nosema is an opportunistic disease and it thrives with weaker hives - due let's say to stress or fighting off the winter cold in a cluster. However, diarrhea may be caused by stress and not mean that the hive has nosema.



Cindy says that to clean off the hive helps stop the spread of the problem if it is nosema. My plan is to clean the hive box off on the next warm day (not tomorrow when the high will be in the low 40s, but maybe this weekend) and to hope the bees with the upset tummies can make it through the winter.