Medhat Nasr, Ph. D. wrote:
> The following link has an excellent study about Viruses in bees and mites.
> http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=535170
If you have not read it, do so. It is an exceptional article with no ax
to grind. Of interest to me was:
"The mechanisms by which viruses could be reactivated in insects are not
fully understood, and predisposing factors other than mite parasitism
might play a role in this phenomenon; such factors include coinfection
with bacteria or protozoans (7) and the effects of chemicals released
into the environment (13, 15, 16). The latter factor is suspected to
play a role in triggering viral disease outbreaks in mammals (32), as
well as in insects (22)."
If you check the footnotes they deal with pesticides released in the
area around bees, and seal deaths from immune suppressors in the
environment. This tracks back to the French problem with Bayer and bee
deaths from imidacloprid. Bayer said it was mites and the beekeepers
said it was imidacloprid. It could have been both, but with imidacloprid
playing the role of first weakening the bees so they were then
susceptible to the mites and transmitted virus. Any organism, if
weakened, it much more susceptible to attacks that, when in a "normal"
state, they would handle easily. When you read of all the virus that
exist normally in a colony and the levels at which they are found,
keeping your bees healthy also means not introducing outside factors
that will weaken them. That seems obvious, but not to all.
I was playing with this thought. Maybe some of the chemical treatments,
be they "organic" or not, could, over time, weaken the bees to the point
that a lesser mite count could be as bad as a heavy load. It also
answers the concern of many with contaminants in wax causing problems
with the health of the colony. Even though the strength of the
contaminants is low, it would still be a weakening factor.
We seem to continually get back to the established, good beekeeping
practice of culling old wax by replacing frames over a programmed
period. God practices better beekeeping than most of us by letting wax
moths cull out old combs and giving bees a fresh start. In essence, bees
in nature are removed from old contaminants, so they can at least have
somewhat of a head start in the disease war.
I was told by several beekeepers, when I first started keeping bees,
that there is no reason to rotate in new comb, and that old black, brood
comb had been in their hives for tens of years. I consider that bad
advice, especially in this current age of Varroa, and, actually, in any age.
Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine
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