Nosema Image and Videos, Dealing With Dead Hives

Although I had hope to continue my run of no winter losses this year, I have just completed dismantling and cleaning out a deadout hive, and trying to find any clue I could about what happened to it. In addition, I have an adjacent second hive that is quickly following in its footsteps and unlikely to survive, It is frustrating, when I did all I could to ensure their survival, and they went into a mild winter seemingly strong and healthy, young queens, and with plenty of stores, and with both nosema and mite treatments. I have 16 other strong hives (I think), but these hives- the ones I keep on my roof- really got slammed this year, and I don't know why.

In November there was what seemed to be a massive die off in 5 rooftop hives, what I thought were among my strongest hives, and the ones I see everyday and look out for in particular. There was a 6th hive on the roof, that was not affected at all, and seemed even to increase in strength. I could not account for it, and a month may have gone by before I found out how intense the die off had been. Many pounds of bees per hive, and a few with only an orange size ball of bees. At first- I blamed a cold snap. Now I am not sure.

Distressing- what's left a hive that was strong in early November-full stores,
no living bees.

At the end of December, I sent samples of two hives to WSU, and mid-January, heard back that they found a low infection rate of Nosema in one hive, no tracheal mites, and a small number of Varroa in another. But nothing serious. Soon after, one hive died out entirely, and now a second is following. The nosema of course, could have come after- I can't blame it for the die off- though maybe it was the primary cause. I had treated- and I think these hives received a full dose- but maybe I am in error- maybe a half dose. I don't know. Another possibility is another virus, and two hives in 2014 on this roof caught CBPV, and one died of it. Possibly they are all infected, and somehow weakened by it. I am guessing, I don't know, and will likely never know.

I opened them as soon as I noticed and the weather allowed. It looked very bad- they had defecated quite a bit on top of the frames on the top super, and had died- just a hundred bees or so left, in filth.  I've seen this before but not in a long time- back when I just let them take care of themselves (and when I didn't know better). The supers were filled with capped honey, they were dry, and protected. I was mystified- and still am- and frustrated that there is not some way to have caught and prevented this earlier- but I am not even sure what it was. I have had almost zero winter losses in the past 3 or 4 years- so this broke my good fortune.

Because they had defected so much, and the dead bees looked swollen (in the living hive I transferred everyone over to a clean hive, with their queen, and will burn and bleach out the frames, even the full ones, in the old hive), I decided to see if I could fine Nosema, as the WSU lab had. I had looked earlier, after reading Randy Oliver's website, but without success (an earlier blog post). I now realize I needed to have looked harder, that some bees, even dead ones from the same hive, seem to have none, while others do. I would think they'd all- in winter- have the infection, especially if they all died- but there's lots I don't know about this.

Preparing first sample- oddly different colored....

So more of a learning experience than anything else, I looked, found obvious Nosema in some samples, and I took the following photographs and videos. I use a teaching scope with a Celestron camera that fits into the scope- its not great, and the software is terrible- but below is what it does. The images through the scope are much sharper, and of course, the camera enlarges them, so its only  a portion of the view you see.

I also discovered that I could use a primitive darkfield technique to enhance the pictures (which I have always wanted to do since I was a kid), which I think is unique with these nosema images, at least for an amateur like myself (and mine are very coarse compared to what a pro would do).

Here is a standard view of a few Nosema cells- and an odd crystal I saw in a number of samples:

This shows a few nosema cells, as well as an odd square crystal which
I saw in a number of guts. I dont know if it is sugar? 8 sided I think.

Most of the guts looked like this- with pollen spores which had obvious

nuclei, but no nosema

I then made a discovery. Above is a typical field of Nosema spores. Randy Oliver describes well how to sample these, and how to I.D. them- they have a distinctive cell wall and sink the bottom of the slide,  and they are often almost luminous. Not a great image- I have a cheapish eyepiece camera by Celestron- the image through the actual eyepiece is much better. However..... 

....hard to believe, but this is the same set of cells as the picture above. You'll see the same clusters, taken seconds apart (some things moved). This second image is a "darkfield " image where you block the light of the condenser, and it creeps around and lights up the sides of things. I hacked it- used a piece of cardboard, and played with the condensor settings. Again- more dramatic in the actual eyepiece- but this is close- you get a sense o their shape and form.

This is the crystal and a few Nosema cells, same as at top of the blog. A
green filter and darkfield. You can see the shape of the crystal- very diamond like.

I took this so I could measure the Nosema- I don't have a scale- but this is a brush from an antennae I think- or something (there are lots of them- not sure why they are in the gut).. A nosema cell or two are just to the right- not super clear as they are lower- but enough to verify size if I can size the brush.

Not perfectly sharp like a real darkfield and a better camera would give- but still an interesting image with depth. I enhanced this one.

This one is "as-is". Nosema cells laying on the glass of the slide. Note, however, that these were drifting about- and below are some scary videos of them moving in the currents of the slide, much like, I would assume, they move around in a bee:

A second video showing drifting spores: