Greetings:
Both Steve Noble and Peter Edwards have points worth considering
Some of us in Ontario had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Yanping 
(Judy) Chen as guest speaker to the OBA (Ontario Beekeepers Assoc) 
summer meeting this past month. Dr. Chen is a Research Entomologist at 
the USDA/ARS Research Centre in Belsville Maryland.
Her topics were specifically on viruses in which she is an expert. Thus 
Steve is right and one day Peter may see eradication but according to 
Dr. Chen the manner in which viruses progress has to unlocked. I asked 
a specific question pertaining to the use of electron microscopy since 
I had done work in other another field with the instrument. Her reply 
was that a virus is so small that we cannot observe it with that 
instrument .
She spoke about the spreading of the viruses as to the vectors involved 
and the varroa mite is precisely one of them.
So it seems that the eradication of the mite may  somehow be the only 
way out of this problem.
Perhaps someone else on Bee-l can speak to the works of  Dr.Judy Chen

From the guest outline of the above meeting:
Dr. Chen conducts research on the epidemiology and pathogenesis of 
honey bee viruses, including establishing insect cell lines for 
propagation of viruses: characterization of genomic structure of 
viruses: developing molecular methods of detection of virus infection 
and characterization of virus seasonal activity; and studying the 
possible role of parasitic mites in the transmission of virus diseases.


Walter
Ontario




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