All:
The LA Article is based on samples that I took from collapsing colonies in
CA last month. I sent these to the Army via another small MT business, BVS,
Inc.
The Army came down to the Beltsville meeting to share their results, which
were obtained last Friday and Sunday.
For clarification, the IVDS system is not a gene-based system. Rather, it
sizes and counts intact viruses - its fast, quick, and relatively cheap. It
appears to have identified 7 viruses in FL, CA, and Australian bees. By
itself, IVDS does not name viruses, so Charles Wick sent samples on to CA for
sequencing.
The identifications are still ongoing, but iflavirus, as I understand, is
not confined to Dwarf Wing, looks like we have Black Queen Cell, Sacbrood, and
some other things.
The point of all of this, the IVDS system is reasonably portable. It
requires simple sample prep - grind up bees with a coffee grinder or blender,
spin-down, filter, shoot through instrument. It will flag every virus in the
sample. Takes about 2 hrs, so if one had a mobile or transportable lab, it could
be sent to problem areas, and samples could be processed for virus the same
day.
Each virus appears as a peak on an output chart. The height of the peak
indicates the titer (concentration). This system has not been applied to bee
viruses before. Its been about 4 weeks since we sent the first samples to the
Army. They had to work up the sample prep steps. Now that they have that
step complete, sample processing is easy. Once a peak is named, one can
reasonably expect that when a peak for that size virus is found, it will be what
the original I.D. said - so you don't have to continually do sequencing.
Obviously, one will need to re-check periodically.
Jerry
Bee Alert Technology
Dave
VBS, Inc.
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