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(excuse the three dots - I'm trying a novel solution to that embarrassing stutter in my Bee-L posts, though as this is coming from a different computer perhaps it isn't a properly controlled experiment ..... )

Hi Jerry and Randy (and Bob)

Well, in the potato world (closer to my day job) I know exactly what you mean Jerry.  There are varieties that succumb to Tobacco Rattle Virus, varieties that resist, and varieties that allow a level of infection (and can spread it) but don't show many symptoms.  That last category can be a bit of a problem for the farmer.  Bees could be like that too.

However, if you have a strain of bee that can survive while the colonies all around are dying, then maybe they have something.  The pressure from the pathogen is very heavy, yet they survive and they are only seen as dinks because they have the misfortune to be sitting next to susceptible stocks.  Stock a whole yard with that line and maybe you'll see no problems at all as the local strength of inoculum will be low.

On the other hand if you have a yard (look, I've gone all-American!) which remains basically healthy and yet you have a few dinks in there, treat these colonies with suspicion and even if they do rebound later, don't breed from them.  They probably have poor genetics and might even be carrying the viruses Jerry is studying.

Of course, managing such problems in the short term requires a different approach, and I'm glad to hear that Jerry has some new ideas coming forward.  However in the long term, getting resistance against 'CCD-factors' integrated into queen raising operations would seem to be wise.

Bob: I'm not trying to put this on your shoulders.  Just pointing out that the right kind of dink might be valuable for the future.  The wrong kind (those fall culls from otherwise healthy yards) are very unlikely to be worth spending any time on.

all the best

Gavin


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