65 beehives were taken from the mountains in the south of Chile (lat -40º) at the begining of winter (28th june) and moved the 12th of July 1000km north (lat -32º) were spring was starting (ie a complete change of flora).
All the colonies were around 5 frames of bees but were not check in detail cause of the rain during the period when moved down the mountain and towards the northen location. All of them were treated with amitraz for varroa in february and given fumagilin for nosema in april.
At their arrival they were treated again for varroa with formic pads, three aplications a week apart (120 ml of 65% formic acid per time). Only J+ and J++ were not treated with formic pads. At the same time 11 different feeding protocols were applied.
Treatments
J = Jarabe =
J+ =
J++ =
JCo =
JCoo =
Jf- =
JfCo =
JfL =
JL =
Jo- =
JoL =
Only Nosema was sampled before and after treatment. The frames with bees was evaluated after treatment by the same person (me).
Some of the colonies did not stand the formic treatment and changed the queens. Most did stand the treatments. The colonies without queen or with virgins were taken out of the results computations.
Results
Number of colonies for computation (one week after feeding period ie a month after the start of experiment).
| Tratamiento | N |
| J | 5 |
| J+ | 5 |
| J++ | 5 |
| JCo | 4 |
| JCoo | 4 |
| Jf- | 10 |
| JfCo | 5 |
| JfL | 3 |
| JL | 5 |
| Jo- | 8 |
| JoL | 4 |
The changed of queen due to formic might be related to the age of the queen.
| | spores per Bee | |
| Tratamiento | exantes | Expost |
| J | 312000 | 2381000 |
| J+ | 449000 | 1393000 |
| J++ | 520000 | 3822000 |
| JCo | 422500 | 3368750 |
| JCoo | 152500 | 1516250 |
| Jf- | 1488500 | 864000 |
| JfCo | 572000 | 269000 |
| JfL | 1391667 | 2433333 |
| JL | 204000 | 1190000 |
| Jo- | 308750 | 2243125 |
| JoL | 103750 | 1133750 |
| | Nosemosis Variation | ||
| Tratamiento | Promedio | Desv. St. | Desvst/promedio |
| J | 0.15 | 0.08 | 56% |
| J+ | 0.70 | 0.99 | 141% |
| J++ | 24.34 | 48.14 | 198% |
| JCo | 0.18 | 0.18 | 102% |
| JCoo | 0.13 | 0.10 | 79% |
| Jf- | 9.28 | 18.13 | 195% |
| JfCo | 5.79 | 3.89 | 67% |
| JfL | 0.51 | 0.67 | 133% |
| JL | 1.36 | 2.06 | 152% |
| Jo- | 0.17 | 0.17 | 102% |
| JoL | 0.10 | 0.05 | 50% |
| | Frame with Bee | ||
| Tratamiento | MA | Desv. St. MA | % varia |
| J | 6.60 | 1.82 | 28% |
| J+ | 8.00 | 1.41 | 18% |
| J++ | 5.80 | 2.17 | 37% |
| JCo | 7.00 | 2.16 | 31% |
| JCoo | 6.25 | 1.71 | 27% |
| Jf- | 7.10 | 1.45 | 20% |
| JfCo | 4.80 | 2.17 | 45% |
| JfL | 6.00 | 0.00 | 0% |
| JL | 6.40 | 0.89 | 14% |
| Jo- | 6.38 | 2.39 | 37% |
| JoL | 7.00 | 1.41 | 20% |
Discution
1.- Bad experiment, two much treatments at the same time.
2.- Too good environmental conditions (good pollen flow)
3.- Only JfCo sistematically reduced nosemosis, but it is at the same time the treatment with less growing incentive.
J++ and Jf- also reduced nosemosis, but with a higher variation within colonies. J++ is the second worst incentive treatment.
4.- The best spring incentive treatment was J+ but in 4 of the 5 colonies nosema was increased.
5.- The increase of spore load was much higher than expected for a biological growth. I tend to think the increase is related to autum honey consumption with spores (infective reservoir).
photo credit: Blessed-Bee Apiaries Inc.
