Guilfordbeekeepers.org

Checked our hives today and found 2 hives with nice stores but are obviously using their own honey now. Our captured swarm has next to nill, dangerously low from our last check on July 14th. Just a few patchy areas of honey surrounding the brood. Brood pattern excellent though. cooking up the sugar water now. Is it a good time to treat for Nosema?

I haven't treated for nosema in the last few years, but if I were, I would probably wait a little later in the feeding season to treat. I think it is more likely to be a problem in cooler weather when bees are more confined and moisture may build in the hive. My gut feeling (not speaking for the bee guts) is that the closer you get to those conditions before knocking down any spore count, the less chance you have of spore numbers building back before hive conditions reflect cooler weather clustering. I had poop on the front of 1 hive coming out of last winter that may have been nosema apis, but I did not treat and things cleared up as the weather warmed. I have not lost a hive to anything that resembles a nosema ceranae outbreak. If I remember some of my readings from earlier this year, I think there is some controversy about how effective the current medication is for nosema. Does anyone remember reading anything about whether it is effective in lowering spore counts?