The following is a brief article on monitoring and treatment for Nosema.

Beekeepers should apply a preventative treatment for Nosema each fall. In the spring, Nosema levels should be monitored. If high levels of Nosema are found, another treatment should also be applied in the spring.

Treatment in the fall:

This is a preventative treatment which should be applied each fall. Feed bees with a mixture of Fumagilin-B with sugar syrup, according to label directions. The fall treatment is very important to protect the bees during the winter season and reduce bee stress. It should be noted that Nosema has proven to be more of a problem when bees are associated with Varroa mites.

Treatment in the Spring:

Feed bees a mixture of Fumagilin-B with sugar syrup in the spring if there is a high level of infection (more than one 1 million spores per bee).

Treatment in the late spring and summer:

Requeen colonies when queens are available.

Comments on the use of Fumagilin-B:

1. Fumagilin-B medicated sugar syrup should be protected from direct sunlight when feeding bees since direct sunlight will decrease the efficacy of Fumagilin-B.
2. Beekeepers should be wary about using medicated syrup that is more than few weeks old since it may have lost a significant amount of its potency.

In response to last winter’s heavy losses of honeybee colonies, the Province of New Brunswick has announced its 2007 Honey Bee Revitalization Initiative.

The objective of this program is “to assist New Brunswick beekeepers to revitalize the honey bee industry in the province by rebuilding 3,100 colonies through the purchase of colonies, nuclei colonies and /or provision of financial incentives to encourage splitting of existing strong colonies.”

Rationale:

Many New Brunswick beekeepers manage honey bee colonies and provide pollination services to wild blueberry, apple, cranberry and vegetable crops, with the largest requirement for pollination coming from the blueberry industry. The New Brunswick wild blueberry industry requires a minimum of 12,000 colonies annually (based on 1 hive per acre). It is estimated that pollination from honey bees contributed 5.5-6.5 million pounds of blueberries (valued at $5.5-6.5 million) to the overall crop yield in 2006. Beekeepers also extract honey from their colonies and market either bulk, wholesale, and/or retail honey (2006 production of 230,000 lbs).

The number of New Brunswick colonies available for pollination has been slowly increasing over the last five years from 4,700 colonies in 2002 to approximately 6,000 colonies in 2006. After severe overwintering losses suffered in the winter of 2006-2007, it is estimated that only 3,500 colonies from provincial beekeepers were available for blueberry pollination in 2007. In order to rebuild to the number of colonies which were available in 2006 and eventually work towards self sufficiency for blueberry pollination in New Brunswick, a honey bee revitalization initiative is required.

Financial assistance will be directed at those beekeepers who plan to remain part of the industry and rebuild their colonies. The funding is not intended to take the form of a payout to all beekeepers who suffered a loss. This targeted approach will help ensure that financial contributions will go to those beekeepers who are intending to rebuild. The Honey Bee Revitalization Initiative will assist beekeepers with the purchase of new colonies and nuclei colonies and will encourage them to split strong New Brunswick colonies. It is anticipated, that with this assistance, industry may be able to rebuild approximately 3,100 colonies by fall.

The deadline for applications is November 16, 2007.

Beekeepers are asked to review the Guidelines (english/french) to determine whether or not they are eligible for this program.

NBBA president Paul Vautour told the CBC last week that New Brunswick’s beekeeping industry has experienced winter losses close to $1 million. The government’s recent pledge of $100,000 in aid to beekeepers “doesn’t come close” to meeting the need.

“To buy a package of bees now is about $200 a package, that’s just to buy the bees to put them in the box, so at $200 dollars a package, you can say I lost about $34,000 myself and I’m just a small commercial beekeeper,” Vautour said.

“There are much larger ones than me, some with 800 hives, some with 1,500 hives, so their losses are much bigger than mine.”

The provincial compensation money will help some producers to buy some honeybees for this year, but Vautour points out that just finding enough bees may be a challenge, with all of North America suffering unusual losses.

The following article applies to people importing honey bees into NB for 2007. Please note that this applies to honey bees being brought in for any purpose and includes people purchasing honey bees, renting honey bees, selling honey bees and any other use of honey bees. These procedures are in place to protect the honey bee industry from honey bee diseases.

Interprovincial movement of honey bees into NB for 2007

The following outlines the New Brunswick sanitary requirements for honey bees being transported from outside New Brunswick into New Brunswick. Please find below information on
A) Requirements for honey bees to enter New Brunswick from outside New Brunswick, and
B) Beekeepers who do not meet these requirements.

Subject A:
Requirements for honey bees to enter New Brunswick from outside New Brunswick

A beekeeper intending to transport honey bees from outside NB to NB must do the following: The beekeeper must ensure that the bees are accompanied with a “Permit to Import and Transport Honey Bees / Autorisation d’importer et de transporter des abeilles” (issued by the Provincial Apiarist in NB) which is dated not more than six months before the date the bees are imported into NB.

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The Los Angeles Times has created a bit of a buzz with a recent report of a study that seems to link Nosema ceranae with Colony Collapse Disorder. Researchers emphasize, however, that study results were “highly preliminary”:

N. ceranae is “one of many pathogens” in the bees, said entomologist Diana Cox-Foster of Pennsylvania State University. “By itself, it is probably not the culprit … but it may be one of the key players.”

Cox-Foster was one of the organizers of a meeting in Washington, D.C., on Monday and Tuesday where about 60 bee researchers gathered to discuss Colony Collapse Disorder.

“We still haven’t ruled out other factors, such as pesticides or inadequate food resources following a drought,” she said. “There are lots of stresses that these bees are experiencing,” and it may be a combination of factors that is responsible.

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