Fumidil B

[snelgrove]

Having kept bees some 20 years ago and then I had to stop due to work and family commitments I started again about 3 years ago. Fumidil B was a additive to sugar syrup in the autumn in those days, as a prevention of nosema and bees seemed better for it in the spring. Why is it no longer available ?

 

[Erichalfbee]

It was judged to be too hazardous to health. Hadn't been available in Europe for some years before it was withdrawn here.
Thymolised syrup sprayed on the brood frames is the thing to use.

 

[snelgrove]

It was judged to be too hazardous to health. Hadn't been available in Europe for some years before it was withdrawn here.
Thymolised syrup sprayed on the brood frames is the thing to use.

cheers for that

 

[chrismcd]

We are too small a market to warrant doing the tox work

IIRC questions were raised over the possibility that the group of compounds that Fumidil belonged to might be teratogenic.

Since this involves the "food chain" there would have needed to have been a lot of research done to settle the issue.

Because Fumidil has only minor uses - just us beekeepers and our bees - nobody has decided to spend the money.

Control of protozoal diseases is a bit of a black area.

 

[dpearce4]

It was judged to be too hazardous to health. Hadn't been available in Europe for some years before it was withdrawn here.
Thymolised syrup sprayed on the brood frames is the thing to use.

Why spray it. just add it to their autumn feed so much easier.

 

[Finman]

Why spray it. just add it to their autumn feed so much easier.

Idea is to sterilize the gut interrior.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Why spray it. just add it to their autumn feed so much easier.

Adding thymol to autumn feed is a preventative.
If you have nosema actually affecting the colony then the ideal method is to spray the combs with the autumn syrup reduced to 1:1 weekly till situation improves.

 

[Finman]

Adding thymol to autumn feed is a preventative.
If you have nosema actually affecting the colony then the ideal method is to spray the combs with the autumn syrup reduced to 1:1 weekly till situation improves.

Nosema will be healed by itself during spring. It appears normally during autumn and winter.

There is no nosema medicine in Europe, and I think that thymol syrup is quite seldom used as cure.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Nosema will be healed by itself during spring. It appears normally during autumn and winter.

Agree, but only if nosema Apis, it won't go away if it is nosema ceranae, which it usually is these days, it will persist all through the summer and make the colony completely unproductive, if a heavy infection, spraying the bees with a strong thymol solution will fix the problem if the queen is not also infected and the colony past the point of no return, too weak.

 

[Finman]

.
I have had much nosema hives. I have noticed them, when they are not able to eate pollen patty. The epithel of gut is spoiled by nosema. When I have given a frame of emerging bees from big hives, the colonies have started to rear larvae. 2/3 of those sick hives' queen have layed normally.

It has been researched in Finland that we have boath nosema and often the hive has a mixture of those boath.
But we have not continous researching about Nosema and most beekeepers deny that they do not have nosema. It is only dysentry as they say.

One way is to breed such bee strains which stand better nosema. It means that do not use superceded queens.

But in Finland nosema situation is not well known. Beekeepers can believe what they want. Feeling is better when you keep your mouth shut.

.

 

[B+.]

Fumidil B was a additive to sugar syrup in the autumn

To be honest, I still have a large tub of it on a shelf in the garage....long out of date and never even opened. I'll get around to throwing it out one of these days.

 

[Hivemaker.]

.
One way is to breed such bee strains which stand better nosema. It means that do not use superceded queens.

I agree, and often much of this continual supercedure seen by some is caused by nosema ceranae buggering up queens.

 

[Finman]

Agree, but only if nosema Apis, it won't go away if it is nosema ceranae, which it usually is these days, it will persist all through the summer and make the colony completely unproductive, if a heavy infection, spraying the bees with a strong thymol solution will fix the problem if the queen is not also infected and the colony past the point of no return, too weak.

Yes, I have met those like last summer, but I do not try to heal them.

Medicine is spare colonies and spare queens. They are for everything like angry hives, chalk brood, nosema, lack of laying powers.

And what is the worst enemy of beekeeper: It is patience and waiting for a miracle. I do not look long time when I squeeze the queen.

 

[Finman]

.
One year my whole yard was in bad condition and reason was nosema, I think.
There was a huge reduction of wintered bees in colonies.

I could see that disease was spreaded to neighbour hives.

But the best evidence was that I had bought 3 new queens on previous summer and those hives were at same condition in spring as in autumn.

Inbreeding in small yard may produce this kind of situation.