Bees not taking syrup

[snimmo243]

I have 2 colonies, colony 1 has a 3 year old queen and colony 2 a 1 year old queen - 9 days ago i put 2 litres of 2 part sugar 1 part water (+apiguard) onto both colonies, I checked back 5 days later - Colony 2 had finished the syrup, Colony 1 had barely touched it - I went back today and again Colony 2 has finished off a further 2 litres whilst Colony 1 has taken some but very little!

Any ideas

Steven

[Jon]

Worth checking for nosema as refusal of syrup can be a sign.

[Rosie]

Apiguard can put some colonies off their feed. Otherwise I think Jon's nosema suggestion is likely to be right.

[Adam]

I agree with the above.

If you have some Nosema treatment (Fumidil B if you can still get it) and leave it on, it should eventually get consumed and as it does, I guess it will start to have an effect on Nosema.

[snimmo243]

Hi
can anyone give me advice on how to check for nosema

[Neils]

Steven,

The short answer is: you need a microscope.

Talk to your association, there's normally one person who'll have one and will be willing to test for nosema.

You need a sample of at least 30 bees to test for nosema with a good degree of accuracy.

Scoop them up into a match box or similar container and then you can test.

I'm writing on a phone of I'd be more specific, but I'd suggest you association as a good place to ask for help testing.

[gavin]

Nosema may or may not be associated with dysentery (spotting on frames and hive generally) and dysentery may or may not be associated with Nosema (other stresses can cause this). Some folk can diagnose Nosema by visually inspecting bee guts. If you wish a microscopic check and can't find help locally, send me a PM and I can do it for you.

It is still quite likely that something else (Apiguard being the prime suspect) is causing them to avoid the feed.

[Jon]

I think Nosema Apis is more likely to be associated with dysentery than Nosema ceranae.
As Gavin says, some colonies just react to the Apiguard/Thymol.

[Stromnessbees]

Hi Steven!

At first I would always check if the bees actually have access to the feeder, it has happened to me more than once that for some reason the bees couldn't get to the syrup and had me puzzled why they wouldn't take it. :rolleyes:
I assume you have checked that they haven't got lots of stores already, which would make them less interested in taking in more.

If there's no obvious reason why there's no uptake then you have to consider a health problem or, as stated by others, a deterrent effect from the treatment.

Nosema is unfortunately becoming a bigger problem in recent years, as bees that are exposed to neonicotinoid pesticides from nearby crops are much more susceptible to it than bees that only forage on untreated crops.

Here's an abstract from a new article which gives lots of information about the immune destroying properties of these highly bee toxic chemicals:



Suppression of immune response to infection in honey bees

Belzunces' observations have been recently substantiated by Pettis et al..14 They demonstrated increased susceptibility of newly emerged worker bees to the gut pathogen Nosema ceranae following exposure of honey bee colonies during three brood generations to imidacloprid dosages of 5 ppb and 20 ppb (which are exposures below the levels demonstrated to cause effects on longevity or foraging in adult honey bees). The microsporidian pathogen Nosema ceranae targets the honeybee midgut and deprives infected bees of nutrients. Thus, they have a much greater chance of dying prematurely. Although residues of imidacloprid were found in bee bread and bees from exposed colonies, and increased in direct and expected proportion to the concentrations in the treated protein patties, newly emerged bees that were subsequently shown to be more susceptible to Nosema ceranae tested negative for imidacloprid. Therefore, the test bees could only have received pesticide exposure during larval development, and pesticide exposure to test bees could only have been indirectly from brood food from nurse bees. The evidence from these experiments shows that immune suppression by imidacloprid can occur in the absence of detectable imidacloprid residues.http://www.farmlandbirds.net/sites/default/files/JEIT-D-12-00001.pdf

If you had oilseed rape or other treated crops within flying range this season then this could be the underlying reason for your problem, even if the bees seem to do well whilst flying to the crop.

[snimmo243]

Hi Everyone
Thanks for the advice, I will have a look tomorrow (weather permitting) to check the level of stores in the brood box, I will also contact someone from EMBA regards Nosema. To answer some of the points raised, the bees have found the syrup and have taken some down although not very much. Over the spring/summer my bees have not had access to rape, in fact the area around my apiary is pretty much devoid of crops, over the last few weeks when the bees have been flying there has been some evidence of Balsam coming in.

How do bees contract Nosema?

Steven

[Jon]

Bees generally have Nosema spores present in the gut and a stressor makes it worse. It only becomes a problem when the spore count gets above a critical level.

Yucel defined a low level as 0.1- 5 million spores per bee, medium infestation, 5-10 million spores per bee, and high infestation more than 10.1 million spores per bee.

There is some good background reading in his 2005 paper (http://scialert.net/qredirect.php?doi=pjbs.2005.1142.1145&linkid=pdf).

Also a huge amount of info on nosema on scientific beekeeping (http://scientificbeekeeping.com/the-nosema-twins-part-5-alternative-treatments/).com.

[prakel]

I assume you have checked that they haven't got lots of stores already, which would make them less interested in taking in more.

??What kind of bees are you guy's breeding up there in Scotland?

[nemphlar]

Munched up 25 bee abdomens with water as per a previous forum comment from jimbo, a small spot under a 400x microscope can't see any nosema. My first try at this. If I can't see any at 400x is this a reliable enough test?

[Jon]

Munched up..

I hope you didn't chew them!

[nemphlar]

I was told not to use the mortar and pestle and it was surprisingly difficult to find an efficient alternative, but no I didn't have to chew them

[HJBee]

So what was the efficient alternative? I'm intrigued.

[nemphlar]

A dremel type grind stone in a plastic dish. Concerned about sterilising the stone after use I've binned it. I'll buy the proper tool for next time.
Just as an aside, I had noted last year that if the bees didn't take the thymol syrup within a few days due to cold weather,they wouldn't touch it later, but if I cleaned the feeders and restocked they would. It may be the lecithin in the mix going off when diluted in the thin syrup?

[snimmo243]

When I checked yesterday the bees had finally finished off the 2 litres