>
> >Feeding in syrup is often the quickest and fastest way of infecting bees
> in both cages and in colonies.
>

Thanks Jerry, I found the same.  But for cage studies it required feeding
at virus dilutions that were much higher than what one would expectedly
find in hive products.  This is the same as what Bailey found.  Not that it
was impossible, but that it required inoculations at very high virus counts.

Some virus transmission (esp of DWV) would be expected to occur during
hygienic removal of infected brood, and I suspect was an issue when I
experimented with killing all the capped brood of mite-infested hives with
a cappings scratcher.  However, I've seen little evidence that this is
normally a major cause of adult bee mortality in the hive.

Could you please elaborate on how you prepared your inoculation solutions?
Was it from hive products, or from crushed bees.  If the latter, that is
not a "natural" occurrence in a hive.  And even so, my published experiment
involving crushing 30 bees on the top bars each month did not show any
measurable effect on colonies during the summer.

Ground truthing wise, I and many other beekeepers routinely reuse brood
chambers from colonies that died from serious DWV infections.  Yet the
colonies that we install onto those brood combs, or colonies upon which we
place those virion-rich combs appear to do just fine.  That observation
does not support the hypothesis that field-realistic exposure to virions in
hive components typically initiates an in-hive epidemic.

That's not to say that it can't happen--some strains of DWV appear to be
able to self propagate within a hive even in the absence of varroa.  But
this appears to be the exception rather than the rule.

BTW, for those interested, this is the fourth discussion that I've had with
a bee researcher this morning alone (the only one publicly posted).
Contrary to Dr. Fischer's assertion, some scientists can actually discuss
and debate among themselves respectively and politely, at least in the
biological sciences.  With Bee-L specifically, there are a number of
top-notch bee researchers who lurk, and then discuss posts off list.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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