Thank you for your reply Randy. 

I have discussed these different results (i.e., Shutler team sampling in 2010, versus 2016 sampling for the Canadian National Honey Bee Health Survey, versus my 2017 AHL sample) with researchers responsible for them at the National Bee Diagnostic Centre, the Animal Health Lab in Guelph, and the Entomology Department at Penn State.  To-date no one has provided a satisfactory explanation for the apparent disappearance of DWV from our Varroa-naive domestic stock.  I can add a bit more to our changing DWV profile given what a beekeeping colleague told me today; that he had participated in 2015 sampling with testing by the AHL. DWV test results were negative for his bees. 

So that's one year of testing with (+) results for DWV (2010), followed by (-) for samples in 2015, 2016, and 2017.

If contamination/false positives in the 2010 "baseline" is a good working hypothesis for the change in our DWV test results, then perhaps the Shutler team could be asked to address this possibility at greater length.

I'd be interested to hear about any conclusions you draw from your deep reading of the DWV-related literature..

Peter A.

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