>Another question that comes to mind: do any of the beekeepers who have confirmed CCD run mostly Australian bees? The two largest commercial operations reporting CCD did not run Australian bees. Both are friends of mine. >This could help answer if Assie bees exposed to varroa are resistant to IAPV (and other viruses). I run Aussie bees along with 4-5 of the top commercial lines and all my bees look great. Of course varroa is well under control. Best looking bees in three years. We have had a strong honey flow all year and especially a strong wildflower fall flow. The last two years the bees were into corn pollen as corn pollen was all there was. This year the bees are leaving the corn pollen alone so I scrapped my plans of moving away from imadicloprid treated corn. I checked the corn fields every three days all season. My conclusion is that in areas of drought (last two years Midwest) you need to avoid corn pollen in fall if all the pollen there is for the bees. Letting your bees gather imidacloprid treated pollen should be avoided as the chemical *is* in the corn pollen. At *the very least* the pollen sets the hives growth back and in many cases *some of us* believe will cause CCD type symptoms! Both drought ( the last two year drought in our area was only bested by the dust bowl drought of 1936 in our area) & systemic treated seed pollen caused some of the CCD reports from my area in my opinion. In fact it was not until late spring when all the fall befores corn pollen was gone that those hives started returning to normal but most did by middle May. The situation would have improved quicker (my opinion) if we had not had the prolonged ice storm and killing freeze which forced the bees to return to using the stored corn pollen from the year before. Hives raising brood last fall on the contaminated pollen had symptoms famliar to Midwest beekeepers on BEE-L. 1. would not brood up last fall. 2. would not take syrup 3. wintered poor with small clusters 4. slow to take syrup last spring 5. slow to build until May 6. Splits from those hives were slow to build. If you are from the Midwest and had bees in areas of corn last fall and saw those symptoms please say so as I have put weeks into the above research and conclusions. I would like conformation of my conclusions. Lurkers please comment on what you saw with your bees! >This is all assuming that IAPV MAY be ONE of the factors contributing to CCD. I think Jim Fischer covered the above nicely! Until proof is made of IAPV being a serious problem then will be on a back burner for me. Also the farm bill only funds the bee labs basically so future funds for CCD seem in doubt at this time. "Bees get no respect!" Jim Fischer 2007 bob -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ******************************************************