Samantha Alger

Samantha Alger

May 02, 2017

Group 6 Copy 180
3

Field Work Complete!

We just completed a successful field season and are happy to announce: all samples have been collected and are now safely stored at the lab! While Zac has been hard at work inspecting hives, moving hives, and collecting and shipping samples from SC, the rest of us have been processing samples and entering data in the lab.  With the help of a few stellar undergraduate helpers, samples from the first two sampling events have been processed for both mites and nosema. Coming up: we have a big week of lab work planned to examine viruses in all samples and to finish mite and nosema counts for the samples collected from the third sampling event. We should have some preliminary results for you soon! Stay tuned...

3 comments

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  • Phyllis E Burnham
    Phyllis E BurnhamBacker
    Well done...on the road to making a huge difference....
    May 03, 2017
  • Amy Handy
    Amy HandyBacker
    Ps, what is nosema.
    May 02, 2017
  • Samantha Alger
    Samantha AlgerResearcher
    Hi Amy, Thanks for your message! Nosema is a fungus that causes a range of symptoms in bees including dysentery. There are two species of Nosema that mainly affects honey bees: Nosema apis and Nosema ceranae. To examine bees for Nosema, we mix bee samples with water and look for spores under a microscope. To measure the level of infection, we count the spores along a grid and calculate the number of spores per 100 bees.
    May 03, 2017
  • Amy Handy
    Amy HandyBacker
    Thanks, very helpful abt what it is and how you detect and measure it.
    May 03, 2017
  • Amy Handy
    Amy HandyBacker
    Good job! I'm interested in your results and I appreciate your periodic updates. Thanks for your work.
    May 02, 2017

About This Project

Crop pollination by migratory beekeeping operations presents a highly concentrated convergence of bees where diseases may be transmitted and spread as hives are transported throughout the US. To test if migratory operations contribute to the spread of disease, we propose an experiment where we subject hives to almond pollination in California and compare their disease loads to stationary hives in N. Carolina. Upon the return of the migratory hives, we will measure subsequent disease spread.

Blast off!

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