Nosema observations

This past year, the Bedford Indiana beekeepers club bought a good microscope with the hopes of being able to help area beekeepers diagnose hives with Nosema infection. A fellow beekeeper and I presented a demonstration at our annual Bee Intensive on how to prepare a sample to look for Nosema. Since the bees used came from a hive with very little to no infection, we were unable to find any spores.

On Aug. 24th, I noticed that one of my hives had they typical "spotting" on the hive for Nosema infection.

I was delighted, but also dismayed, but now I had a hive that was infected.  Due to the weather, etc., I was not able to inspect the hive until Sept. 4th.  By then, the spotting was worse. 

I took a sample of bees and brought them into the lab that I work in.  I pulled 4 gut samples and pulverized them in sterile water.

I then made several slides. I was able to maybe find a few spores, but will so much other debris, they were hard to find. 

I then took samples and plated on two different types of culture media. The Nosema spores grew really well on one of the culture plates.  I then had a pure sample of the Nosema

To make sure that my culture could be re-plated, I took a sample from the first culture plate and used it on a new plate. Again, I had very good growth. Then, I wanted to see if there was a pH at which the Nosema would either not grow or have slower growth. Using the same growth media, I made plates using pH of 3 and 10. The base pH of the media used is 5.5 


Both pH 10 and the control plate had good growth, but the pH 3 plate had slower growth with shorter filaments.

pH 10

Control, pH 5.5

pH 3

Next, I plan on determining the pH of the sugar syrup with the added essential oils. It may be possible to change the pH of the syrup in order to help slow the growth of Nosema in the bee gut.