Identifying Nosema

Source Used: A

Three Most Interesting Points:

1.       There’s more than one type of Nosema: Nosema apis and Nosema ceranae. The former is a long-time attacker of bees, but N. ceranae is apparently recent. It seems troubling to me that this parasitic fungi is being introduced.

2.       Oh, the mode of infection sounds exceedingly painful for the bee. It apparently “explosively uncoils a long straw-like polar filament” that “penetrates outer gut cells and, in the process, infects them”. That really sounds incredibly unpleasant, and I can’t help but wonder how the bees go on with their merry little lives.

3.       Infected worker bees will live for a shorter time and will never develop fully. If the Queen gets infected, she will be superceded, and infected colonies will die more easily over the winter. Poor things!

Question: What conditions of hives lends themselves to being susceptible to nosema infections?

To Look For: Well, I’d say the little Nosema specks under the microscope, but procrastination rears its ugly butt again and, unfortunately, we’ve done this in class already.

I am so sorry, sir.