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The assumption of infection and cure process:
| Model | Symbols on the picture | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| epidemic | suspected | bees free of Nosema ceranae and having not ingested the capsule carrying Beecoli |
| latent | bees infected with a low-dose Nosema Ceranae. They will not spread Nosema Ceranae to other bees and are curable by ingesting the capsule carrying Beecoli | |
| infected | bees infected with Nosema Ceranae after a period of time that the population of Nosema Ceranae have grown too high to be killed by the capsule carrying Beecoli and thus the bees are incurable | |
| ingested capsule | bees ingested the capsule carrying Beecoli but the time is too short for the capsule to be digested and in effective action | |
| immunized | bees ingested the capsule carrying Beecoli and are totally cured after the ingested capsule are digested and in effective action |
In this model, we considered the worst situation－all bees are infected by Nosema; that is, there are only two stages－the latent and the infected stage.
The result shows quite a cheerful consequence that if the infection rate(the ratio of bees in infected stage to bees in latent stage) is under 80 percentage, the colony is curable by feeding our capsule.
Figure1: epidemic model picture. X-direction represents infection to latent ratio; y-direction represents capsule concentration; z-direction represents survival rate. As assumed, the colony with survival rate below ten is considered extinct.
